7 February 1942 A.D. U.S. Government Orders Detroit Auto Companies Convert to Wartime Production Purposes

7 February 1942 A.D. U.S. Government Orders Detroit Auto Companies Convert to Wartime Production Purposes

Editors. “1942 – The federal government ordered passenger car production stopped and converted to wartime purposes.”  This Day in U.S. Military History. N.d. https://thisdayinusmilhist.wordpress.com/2014/02/07/february-7/. Accessed 6 Feb 2014.

1942 – The federal government ordered passenger car production stopped and converted to wartime purposes. In spite of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s exhortation that the U.S. auto industry should become the “great arsenal of democracy,” Detroit’s executives were reluctant to join the war cause. However, following the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the country mobilized behind the U.S. declaration of war. The government offered automakers guaranteed profits regardless of production costs throughout the war years. Furthermore, the Office of Production Management allocated $11 billion to the construction of war manufacturing plants that would be sold to the automobile manufacturers at remarkable discounts after the war. What had at first seemed like a burden on the automotive industry became a boon. The production demands placed on the industry and the resources allocated to the individual automobile manufacturers during the war would revolutionize American car making and bring about the Golden Era of the 1950s.