Cadillac Lights the Way

Though its plants were ringed with grim pickets, and partially assembled autos were still stranded on the production line, Cadillac last week showed off a batch of glistening 1962 models at a Detroit press preview. Before the strike hit G.M. had managed to turn out 7,000 '62 Caddies--enough to give most dealers a car or two for this week's public introduction.

Chief change in the new Cadillac is an eminently sensible innovation: a "cornering light" mounted on the side of each front fender just to the rear of the headlight. When the driver flicks his turn indicator at night, the cornering light floods the area into which he is turning with a wide, low arc of light. Otherwise, like most 1962s, the new Cadillac is simply a sleeker version of the 1961 model.

Paradoxically, the close resemblance between most of the 1962 cars (see cuts) and their 1961 predecessors pleases the men who in the past have pushed hardest for style changes: the nation's auto dealers. The only dealers to get completely restyled cars--the trim new Plymouths and Dodge Darts--were generally delighted, since last season's models were particularly bulky and bulbous. But dealers whose 1961 wares had been hot sellers, notably those handling the Falcon and the Mercury Comet, were openly relieved that their cars had retained the same basic design. Said Oldsmobile Dealer Harry Healer of Watertown, Mass.: "The beauty of it is that they aren't making cars obsolete in a year any more."

Like Detroit itself, the dealers seemed convinced that there had been nothing wrong with the slow-selling 1961s that the improved economic conditions greeting the 1962s would not cure.

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