# Roosevelt's Post War Plans **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 13, 2005, 9:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/roosevelts-post-war-plans/299109 "2005-04-13T09:50:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2005, 9:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/roosevelts-post-war-plans/299109/1 "2005-04-13T09:50:11Z")
According to an article written by Preston Tucker, six months before the ending of the war in Europe, Roosevelt had a meeting with the heads of the Big Three carmakers to discuss his post-war plans. Tucker claims that Roosevelt threatened anti-trust action against the automakers. Naturally, I’m curious if this meeting actually occured. Did Roosevelt have such a meeting? And did he imply that he was going to be seeking anti-trust actions against them? ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2005, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/roosevelts-post-war-plans/299109/2 "2005-06-05T04:28:26Z")
Bumpity. ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2005, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/roosevelts-post-war-plans/299109/3 "2005-06-05T04:47:10Z")
Where can I read the article that alleges this? ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2005, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/roosevelts-post-war-plans/299109/4 "2005-06-05T04:51:58Z")
AFAIK, there’s no online source for it. It originally appeared in the December 1955 issue of _Car Life_ magazine, but IIRC resold the piece (since he wrote it) to a couple of other publications. ---
**Author:** ![Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2005, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/roosevelts-post-war-plans/299109/5 "2005-06-05T17:25:54Z")
I’ve never heard of this meeting, and detailed biographies of FDR don’t mention it. During the war, the auto companies were defense contractors turning out trucks and Jeeps for the Army; civilian auto production virtually ceased and competition wasn’t an issue. In addition, antitrust was never the major weapon in FDR’s economic arsenal. The NRA, a centerpiece of the early New Deal, practically encouraged cartelization of major industries under the theory that excessive competition was contributing to deflation. There were _some_ antitrust cases brought under Roosevelt, but as I say, it was never a major focus. Of course, I can’t prove a negative. It’s possible the meeting took place, and that FDR was looking ahead to postwar civilian reconversion and said, “If you do this, then I’ll do that.” But I have no evidence of this. ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2005, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/roosevelts-post-war-plans/299109/6 "2005-06-05T18:27:35Z")
> [@Freddy the Pig](#): > > I’ve never heard of this meeting, and detailed biographies of FDR don’t mention it. During the war, the auto companies were defense contractors turning out trucks and Jeeps for the Army; civilian auto production virtually ceased and competition wasn’t an issue. In addition, antitrust was never the major weapon in FDR’s economic arsenal. The NRA, a centerpiece of the early New Deal, practically encouraged cartelization of major industries under the theory that excessive competition was contributing to deflation. There were _some_ antitrust cases brought under Roosevelt, but as I say, it was never a major focus. > > Of course, I can’t prove a negative. It’s possible the meeting took place, and that FDR was looking ahead to postwar civilian reconversion and said, “If you do this, then I’ll do that.” But I have no evidence of this. Well, _had_ such a meeting taken place (and there were definately meetings at the start of the war with the leaders of industry), there’d be a record of it (not necessarily on the web, however). So it looks to me that Tucker may have been making it up or exaggerating things. Still, it might be possible to throw a little weight in one direction or the other if there was some kind of “Post-War Plans” type document floating about. ---
**Author:** ![jimmmy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/73ab20/32.png) [@jimmmy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jimmmy)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2005, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/roosevelts-post-war-plans/299109/7 "2005-06-05T22:08:54Z")
> [@Tuckerfan](#): > > According to an article written by Preston Tucker, six months before the ending of the war in Europe, Roosevelt had a meeting with the heads of the Big Three carmakers to discuss his post-war plans. Tucker claims that Roosevelt threatened anti-trust action against the automakers. Making that Novebmer of 44 right after the election? My WAG is that FDR who probably knew he [wasn’t going to live very long](http://www.doctorzebra.com/prez/z_x32fdrk_t.htm) and was focused almost completely on finishing the war, which he and Churchill estimated would go on at least through 46-47 at that point. I cannot give you a definitive SDMB-GQ answer “No”. But given everything I have ever read on FDR’s end of life it seems very, very unlikely that he was throwing down with the Big three at that point over some theoretical point he (probably) knew he was never going to live to see. ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2005, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/roosevelts-post-war-plans/299109/8 "2005-06-05T23:41:07Z")
[QUOTE=Tuckerfan] So it looks to me that Tucker may have been making it up or exaggerating things. QUOTE] Not that he ever did that. :eek: :eek: :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2005, 6:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/roosevelts-post-war-plans/299109/9 "2005-06-06T06:25:36Z")
> [@jimmmy](#): > > Making that Novebmer of 44 right after the election? My WAG is that FDR who probably knew he [wasn’t going to live very long](http://www.doctorzebra.com/prez/z_x32fdrk_t.htm) and was focused almost completely on finishing the war, which he and Churchill estimated would go on at least through 46-47 at that point. > > I cannot give you a definitive SDMB-GQ answer “No”. But given everything I have ever read on FDR’s end of life it seems very, very unlikely that he was throwing down with the Big three at that point over some theoretical point he (probably) knew he was never going to live to see. You’re probably right. I need to check to see how much info there’s available online at the FDR library (if there is such a thing), since I’ve found some comments by Truman’s staff at his library indicating that the Truman Administration had a tough time dealing with various heads of industry economizing during the wartime as well as they should have. So it might be, that if this meeting _did_ take place, FDR might have been saying it to put the fear of Og in them, in order to help bring the war to a rapid close. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2005, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/roosevelts-post-war-plans/299109/10 "2005-06-06T16:14:02Z")
What kind of “anti-trust action” did Tucker say that Roosevelt was threatening? What did he want them to do or not do? How exactly would he have justified it? (The Big Three had many more American competitors then than they do today.) I’d like to see a lot more information on what Tucker actually said. Even so, I’m with the others. Jawboning industry was not FDR’s style. I can’t remember a similar instance concerning any other industry during the war. If he wanted industry to do things, he had any number of surrogates to do the actual talking. And there is very little evidence of any post-war plans he was initiating at that time. ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2005, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/roosevelts-post-war-plans/299109/11 "2005-06-06T18:17:57Z")
Slight correction, the quote’s from a 1951 Issue of _Cars_ magazine (my photocopy of the article doesn’t have the date of the issue). Anyway, here’s what the article says > [@](#): > > Some six months prior to the end of the war in Europe, the late President Roosevelt called together the leaders of the three major automobile corporations. After expressing his appreciation for the part they played in the war effort, the President informed them that the best information at hand indicated that war in Europe would be successfully ended in about six months; that they could not go back into automobile production until the war with Japan ended; but that they could start now to make plans for resumption of car manufacturing. > > He then informed them that a condition in which three manufacturers controlled 90 per cent of the auto industry, largest in the world, was not a condition in the best interests of the people. He (Roosevlet) would bring suit against them at war’s end to establish in the courts whether or not they constituted a monoploy or an illegal combine. > > He further informed the automobile corporations that they would not be sold the factories which the government had built for them for production of war goods: the Ford Willow Run plant, the Dodge-Chicago plant and many factories built for General Motors and lesser automobile companies. Rather, said President Roosevelt, such plants would go to new businesses. His hope for the auto industry was a competitive Big Ten rather than a Big Three. Now, [here’s an account](http://www.trumanlibrary.org/oralhist/newcomb.htm) by a former Truman official on the kinds of problems they had with some industries during the war (_not_ I should point out, the automotive industry, I haven’t found anything on the site which discusses them yet) > [@](#): > > The brick men wanted to work slowly and put in as many man hours as they could. The Washington men said, “No, you’ve got to do this, you’ve got to increase your production, you got to be more efficient, because we need all the construction we can get.” > > The plumbing situation was the worst I ever ran into. We had a staff developing efficient plumbing designs. Instead of using a two inch or a three inch vent, for instance, we found we could use an inch and a half one or whatever it was; it was small. All you needed was enough there for air pressure to change so that water didn’t back up into the water closet. I called the plumbing companies in that did the installation in houses. I said, “We’re running short of copper and we’re running short of steel and we’ve got to economize all the way through.” > > And they said, “We won’t.” > > I said, “Why?” > > “Because if we economize now and it works, as we know it will, then when the war is over the industry will continue to economize and we will be selling less material.” > > Well, I said, “That may be so, but we don’t have it now for you.” > > They said, “We will not install it like that.” > > I said, “Okay, in all public buildings the Corps of Engineers will put it in.” > > That was a bluff. I couldn’t move that fast. That night I got a call from the association’s executive secretary and he said, “We’ve sent our president back home, and we’ll play ball.” > > In World War I the same thing happened. (emphasis in the original) Now prior to the war, a great number of automotive firms had gone under: Pierce Arrow, Franklin, Auburn, Cord, Duesenberg, and many others. All victims, in one way or another, of the Great Depression. Additionally, there’d been (IIRC) some consolidation in the industry as far as the Big Three buying up the suppliers for subcomponents (I believe that some of this happened _before_ the war, but certainly a great deal of it happened _after_ the war.), and there had been some rumblings about the threats to the smaller independants the Big Three had posed. (My sources for this are books on the history of Packard and Studebaker companies, _not_ anything Tucker had said.) The government had entered into what many had felt was a flawed arrangement with industry during the war in order to keep prices down. I forget the exact details of the arrangement, and I don’t have time to dig through my references at the moment, but it limited the amount of profit a company could make to 15% above what they’d made just prior to the war’s start. There was a clause for companies which _hadn’t_ made a profit before the war, but I don’t remember the details. This agreement, however, (and unintentionally, I’m sure) ensured that companies which were failing _before_ the war, would _not_ be on firm financial footing by war’s end. Now, FDR was a fairly astute individual, and probably knew that these deals weren’t the best, but knowing that he **had** to win the war, probably figured that something could be done to correct this at war’s end. What that was, of course, I’ve no idea. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2005, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/roosevelts-post-war-plans/299109/12 "2005-06-06T19:04:19Z")
Yes, the government had problems with industries during the war. So what? That has absolutely nothing to do with any comments anybody might have made about industries after the war. And there’s a factual problem with the Tucker article. The government did not build the Willow Run plant: Henry Ford did. Not only was it begun before the U.S. entered the war, it was _finished_ before the U.S. entered the war. It started limited parts production in November 1941. [This Michigan History article](http://www.michiganhistorymagazine.com/extra/willow_run/willow_run.html) doesn’t indicate any government help in the building of the plant, although there may have been some. Almost certainly, however, it was not a government plant that FDR could have given away after the war. And it seems doubtful that the public would have approved. > [@](#): > > A national sample of public opinion by Elmo Roper in July 1944 showed that 31 percent of the American people believed that Ford was contributing more to the war effort than any other automaker, as opposed to 21 percent for GM. In the spring of 1945 Roper found that Henry Ford ranked second only to Henry J. Kaiser, a major West Coast shipbuilder, as the man to have done more to win the war than any other American, not counting Presidents Roosevelt and Truman and military figures Ford received approximately twice as many votes as the men ranked third and fourth in the pool. Donald M. Nelson, chairman of the War Production Board, and James F. Byrnes, director of war mobilization. I don’t see any evidence that the government built the Dodge-Chrysler aircraft engine plant in Chicago either. This mammoth plant, actually bigger than Willow Run, was built under government contract, but that’s not at all the same thing. I call bullshit. I don’t think that the Tucker article is factually correct and I simply can’t believe that as astute a politician as Roosevelt would have said anything like this in the middle of a war. What would he have gained by it? Tucker had something to gain by a breakup of the Big Three, however. Consider the source. ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2005, 5:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/roosevelts-post-war-plans/299109/13 "2005-06-07T05:48:54Z")
> [@Exapno Mapcase](#): > > Yes, the government had problems with industries during the war. So what? That has absolutely nothing to do with any comments anybody might have made about industries after the war. People are petty, and some times plot revenge. So while FDR _might_ have said it, his intention might solely have been to shake them up into complying better, with no serious intention of following through with it after the war. And the thought of companies trying to screw the government was so repulsive to most people that one of the leading crusaders against it during the war, a certain Missouri Senator by the name of Harry S. Truman, later wound up as FDR’s VP because of the popularity he gained by doing this. (And it should be noted that Truman pursued the bastards based on reasons of personal outrage, and not any desire for political gain.) > [@](#): > > And there’s a factual problem with the Tucker article. The government did not build the Willow Run plant: Henry Ford did. Not only was it begun before the U.S. entered the war, it was _finished_ before the U.S. entered the war. It started limited parts production in November 1941. > > [This Michigan History article](http://www.michiganhistorymagazine.com/extra/willow_run/willow_run.html) doesn’t indicate any government help in the building of the plant, although there may have been some. Almost certainly, however, it was not a government plant that FDR could have given away after the war. That’s not entirely correct. [Here](http://www.trumanlibrary.org/oralhist/snyder5.htm) is an account from the Executive Vice-President and Director, Defense Plant Corporation, 1940-43 John W. Snyder about the Willow Run Plant > [@](#): > > Well, yes, the Willow Run Plant was initially built by the Ford Motor Company. Mr. Ford, Sr. didn’t want to have anything to do with Government financing. And so when he started to build the large bombers in that plant, why, he built the plant himself. Subsequently, the Defense Plant Corporation purchased it from the Ford Motor Company, and leased it back to them for operating during the war. Following the war, the plant was used by two or three different lessees,initially, the Kaiser Motor Company was in there for awhile, and one of the large hangars was taken over for a municipal airport terminal. Finally, though, they got it operating pretty well; all the facilities are now in use. > [@](#): > > And it seems doubtful that the public would have approved. From the same source, the thought process which went into building the plants. > [@](#): > > Some of the larger ordnance plants, such as the one that I mentioned out at Chicago, had eighty acres under one roof. Well, it took quite a bit of planning to get operations that could utilize that large a space, but through community cooperation, putting sometimes eight and ten operations into the same building, we were able to get them all pretty well operating. There were many, of course, the one-purpose plants for manufacturing machine gun bullets and things of that sort, that there just wasn’t any peacetime use for, had to be either turned into storage plants, or some facility of that character. But by and large by our foresight in putting the option clause into the contracts, the operators in the Defense Plant Corporation facilities had planned ahead for the use of their plants. In that way these plants were more easily converted than some of the one-purpose plants that were built by the Ordnance Department and some of the specialized agencies. Remember, the US was just starting to come out of the Great Depression when it joined the war, so naturally people were concerned that after the war there was ample employment for folks. > [@](#): > > I don’t see any evidence that the government built the Dodge-Chrysler aircraft engine plant in Chicago either. This mammoth plant, actually bigger than Willow Run, was built under government contract, but that’s not at all the same thing. But as you can see from the above quote, the idea was that the plant would be turned over to a civilian operation of some sort after the war. The original deal that Tucker had was he would be leased the plant (with the option purchase it later), the Feds later yanked that deal, and told Tucker that he’d only be granted a lease to the plant if he shared it with the Lustron Corporation. Tucker agreed, and Lustron moved into a portion of the plant, almost immediately, however, the Feds tried to push Tucker completely out of the plant. (The film is inaccurate in claiming Tucker lost control of the plant at the end of the trial. Tucker was booted from the plant the moment the Feds filed fraud charges against him.) > [@](#): > > I call bullshit. I don’t think that the Tucker article is factually correct and I simply can’t believe that as astute a politician as Roosevelt would have said anything like this in the middle of a war. What would he have gained by it? Tucker had something to gain by a breakup of the Big Three, however. Consider the source. If I thought that Tucker’s comments could be accepted as gospel, I wouldn’t have posted the question. I’d like to know, however, what FDR really intended to do after the war. Obviously, there _was_ some thought at the beginning of the war into swords into ploughs, but was it simply, “We’ll build the plants so that they can easily be converted into something else that we’ll figure out later on.” Or did they have specific aims as to the kinds of industries they planned to make those plants available to? ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2005, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/roosevelts-post-war-plans/299109/14 "2005-06-08T21:09:10Z")
Shoot. I meant to get back to this earlier. Good research. I checked into the building of the plants, but not into their later disposition. Another illustration of the maxim to never assume and never take anything for granted. However, the interview with John Snyder itself supports the view that the administration did not have very specific goals in mind for plant reconversion, that the end of the war in Europe while the war continued in Japan threw it into turmoil, that there was considerable disagreement inside the administration about how to proceed, and that the free market was mostly allowed to make the conversation unhindered. Who was supposed to be plotting revenge against whom? Good cite, but it doesn’t seem to support Tucker’s contention in any way. Or Tucker, for that matter: > [@](#): > > SNYDER: Well, Tucker was to have made cars, but he had three or four prototypes of an assembled car, but he never went into production. > > HESS: Did you ever see one of those cars? > > SNYDER: Yes. I went to a showing that he had one time. And the greatest attraction were the lovely girls that he had standing around it. > > HESS: And not necessarily the car? > > SNYDER: That’s right. Just out of curiosity, are you aware of the streamlined car Norman Bel Geddes designed in his 1932 book _Horizons_, which included some details that Tucker would later use, like headlights that turned with the wheels? ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2005, 5:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/roosevelts-post-war-plans/299109/15 "2005-06-09T05:45:26Z")
> [@Exapno Mapcase](#): > > Shoot. I meant to get back to this earlier. > > Good research. I checked into the building of the plants, but not into their later disposition. Another illustration of the maxim to never assume and never take anything for granted. IIRC, the film _is_ accurate when Karatz says that the unions wanted the plant to go to an automaker. (My source for this is **not** Tucker related, so it should be accurate, assuming my memory isn’t playing tricks on me.) > [@](#): > > However, the interview with John Snyder itself supports the view that the administration did not have very specific goals in mind for plant reconversion, that the end of the war in Europe while the war continued in Japan threw it into turmoil, that there was considerable disagreement inside the administration about how to proceed, and that the free market was mostly allowed to make the conversation unhindered. True, but the car makers were given the greenlight to resume civilian production while we were still at war with Japan. For reasons too complicated to go into, the first cars didn’t roll off the assembly line until **after** Japan surrendered, but it was well known to everyone, including the Japanese, that the war was over long before Japan surrendered. > [@](#): > > Who was supposed to be plotting revenge against whom? Well, perhaps revenge isn’t necessarily the right term. **If** FDR had had a lot of trouble out of the Big Three (and I don’t know enough of about their history during this time period to say for sure), he might have wanted to do it, in order to force them to play ball better. Let’s not forget that even FDR probably knew he wouldn’t survive the war at this point, and he no doubt wanted to make sure that there were no unexpected surprises between then and war’s end. In 1944 Eisenhower was aiming at victory by Christmas, which of course didn’t happen, but from what I gather, his pledge was rather well known (he even had a bet with Monty about it). So **if** FDR said something like that, it might have simply to get them to STFU, so he could get the war over with. (Og knows that in the newsreel of him and Truman eating breakfast, FDR looked like death eating a sandwich.) > [@](#): > > Good cite, but it doesn’t seem to support Tucker’s contention in any way. Or Tucker, for that matter: Of course, Snyder is **wrong** when he states that Tucker only built three or four prototypes in the plant. I don’t have time to dig for an online site, but there’s photographs of the pilot assembly line in the plant, showing a large number of cars either complete or nearly complete, and it’s well documented that when everything was sold off at the sheriff’s auction that there were 50 complete cars (one of which was the rollover car), plus enough parts, including bodies to assemble several other cars. Unfortunately, only one more was assembled from those components (the others being used to keep the completed Tucker’s running or simply allowed to rot in a field in Indiana, IIRC). From my research, I’ve been able to ascertain that Truman had some idea of what all was going on with Tucker, but not the complete details, which isn’t really surprising, since Truman had a country to run, and Tucker was only a minor issue in the postwar reconstruction of the world. > [@](#): > > Just out of curiosity, are you aware of the streamlined car Norman Bel Geddes designed in his 1932 book _Horizons_, which included some details that Tucker would later use, like headlights that turned with the wheels? Nope, but the idea dates before that. In the 1920s you could buy an after-market kit for your Packard which enabled you to mount a center light that would turn with the wheels. Tucker, it just so happens, was a Packard salesman at this time. (Tucker’s true genius, IMHO, was taking various ideas that had been out there for some time and combining them into one car.) So is the book any good? And is it still in print? ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2005, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/roosevelts-post-war-plans/299109/16 "2005-06-09T13:20:45Z")
_Horizons_ is a fascinating look at the far boundaries of design. It’s part day-after-tomorrow concept and part down-to-earth practical and part pure silliness (his concept airplane is an ocean liner in the air, with a crew of 135!). It’s an expensive collector’s item today, but my central library had a copy and I imagine any good library would also have one: it’s a classic. I happened to just read it so the car design stuck in my head. It was essentially a teardrop with fins, with eight seats in three rows and the engine situated so that there need be no hood, giving the driver excellent visibility. A less-boxy minivan, in some ways. It wasn’t just streamlined, but it was also low to the ground to prevent rollover, evidently a major problem at the time. Automobile deaths then were almost the same as today, but that meant they were at least 20 times higher per million miles driven. A prototype was scheduled to be built just when the 1929 market crash hit and wiped out his backer.