Car Production Numbers. They Made How Many? 1946

Fresh out of WWII the America car industry was facing the challenge of converting back to peace time auto production.  This as a huge task and the pressure was on, because if the average American owned a car there was a good change (50%) that it was 9 years old or older and needed replacing.   Materials were still in short supply, money wasn’t and to ensure that stayed the case most of the car company merely refreshed their 1942 cars.  Toss in labor issue and you can understand how tough the  situations was.

Ford lead the 17 manufacturers that year with 468,022 units produced. Chevy followed second with 398,028 cars. The others followed as such:

Plymouth – 264,660        Dodge – 163,490

Buick – 153, 627                Pontiac – 137,640

Olds – 117,623                    Nash – 94, 000

Hudson – 91,029               Mercury – 86,608

Chrysler – 83,310              DeSoto – 66,900

Packard – 30, 793             Caddy – 29,214

Studebaker – 19,275         Lincoln – 16,465

Corsley – 4, 99

1946 Crosely….not much to look at for sure but it did sport a 4 cylinder power plant.

I’m betting they meant to build this:

Thanks for reading.

Tim