Ben Franklin Pkwy in Philly 1945
 

Leading the pack

Re: Ben Franklin Pkwy in Philly 1945
 

I spot a '39 or '40 Ford in the row behind the '29 Model A Cabriolet & a '39 Buick way over under the trees in a parking lot as the latest cars in the picture. A 1930 Buick, front row, center is already missing it's fragile die-cast badge bar between the headlights. No wonder they're so hard to find today.

Re: Ben Franklin Pkwy in Philly 1945
 

I now understand driving on the parkway ( it looks like a parking lot)

Re: Ben Franklin Pkwy in Philly 1945
 

Attachment 556177

This ones been around. Pretty neat though.

Re: Ben Franklin Pkwy in Philly 1945
 

I think the pic is older than 1945. the newest car I see is the 39 noted by Mass a man

Re: Ben Franklin Pkwy in Philly 1945
 

Likely not too many new cars would have shown up between about 1940 and 1945

Joe B

Re: Ben Franklin Pkwy in Philly 1945
 

Only new cars during WW II were Jeeps.

Re: Ben Franklin Pkwy in Philly 1945
 

Don't tell that to any '41 Fords.
Wayno

Re: Ben Franklin Pkwy in Philly 1945
 

Ford was able to poop out over 160,000 cars in 1942 before production ended Feb. 10th, '42. Quite low for the Ford Motor Co. but there's at least 2 local to my small area.

Re: Ben Franklin Pkwy in Philly 1945
 

How industry managed to switch over factories and build new ones after Pearl Harbor is astounding.

Re: Ben Franklin Pkwy in Philly 1945
 

That has always amazed me also. Could that be done today?

Re: Ben Franklin Pkwy in Philly 1945
 

They knew what was happening. GM was prepping in 1937.


https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?...71539939&seq=7


My dad was a tool engineer at Saginaw Steering Gear. He did a lot of the tooling to speed up the M1 Carbine production. They did the Browning machine gun first. They delivered the first guns 7 months early when the contract called for the 280th one to be delivered they had produced over 28,000. The original contract cost was $667 each they were able to produce them for $142 and returned over 7 million dollars to the government.


GM built a 2.5 ton truck that was shipped to europe in a crate to save space. The Gis assembled them there. https://www.lonesentry.com/blog/ordn...ed-trucks.html

Re: Ben Franklin Pkwy in Philly 1945
 

I guess that it makes sense that the big manufacturers would anticipate that the US would go to war and make plans for conversion.

Thanks for the information.

Re: Ben Franklin Pkwy in Philly 1945
 

bobv: That has always amazed me also. Could that be done today?

I am totally amazed at the infrastucture of mfg. that the FOMOCO managed and maintained, and changed to. 1928 - 1931/2 and i ask also:

could it be done today?

Re: Ben Franklin Pkwy in Philly 1945
 

Staff cars and trucks of all sizes and from all manufactures

Re: Ben Franklin Pkwy in Philly 1945
 

With a smaller amount of manufacturing in the United States today compared to the 1,940s I think we would be in serious trouble if we were involved in a major war today!!!

Re: Ben Franklin Pkwy in Philly 1945
 

Leading the pack?

Or slowing it down.....ha

Re: Ben Franklin Pkwy in Philly 1945
 

Our town has a Bridge that comes onto Cape Cod which was built in Dec. '33 and opened Jun. '35 = 1 1/2 years!

Moving foward to NOW there has been talk of replacing it for AT LEAST FIVE YEARS and est. say it will take 5-6 YEARS to build a NEW ONE!

What is WRONG with THIS PICTURE?

Re: Ben Franklin Pkwy in Philly 1945
 

A major limiting factor would be the quality of the workforce. How many service industry workers have any kind of background or competence in manufacturing? Among my family and those of my acquaintance there is not one person that works in an industry where things are made. Most of our manufacturing infrastructure has been shipped to other countries.