It’s been said that chrome is the offical color of the U.S. auto industry. But in support of the war effort, the brightwork was banished from the final run of 1942 models.
Well before the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7. 1941, the auto industry was already deeply involved in military production. Oldsmobile was making artillery shells, while Packard’s new Merlin aircraft engine plant was completed and in production. Willys-Overland was turning out Jeeps right alongside passenger cars at its Toledo plant, and Ford had its Jeep line at the Rouge running in April of 1941. Every major automaker was filling military contracts under the consultation of former GM president William S. Knudsen, appointed by President Franklin Roosevelt to organize the efforts.
But with the declaration of war by Congress on December 8, the entire industry and all its resources were converted to military production. Knudsen was given the rank of lieutenant general. Retail sales of new cars was prohibited after January 1, and the Office of Production Management ordered a suspension of automobile production as well, later extended to February to allow carmakers to fill orders and clear the supply lines. The final Chevrolet was completed on January 30, Buick and Nash on Feburary 4, and the last Ford rolled off the line on February 10.
This final handful of cars sported a noticeably different look. Chromium, nickel, copper, and stainless steel were now strategic materials—they were precious metals for a war machine, you could say. Bright metal trim was ordered painted rather than plated, and even the existing stocks of trim components were to be painted over, too. However, chrome plating was still permitted on bumpers, as on the ’42 Oldsmobile above.
Since black or other dark enamels were often used to replace the chrome, these cars became known as “blackout models,” though the actual finish used by each manufacturer varied considerably. Interior trim pieces were also dechromed on some cars, and the conservation measures extended to other materials as well. To save rubber, many vehicles were shipped wihout spare tires or trunk mats.
With the shortened manufacturing season, U.S. auto production fell from around three million for the 1941 model year to barely one million in MY 1942. And of those,only around one-fifth were produced in January ’42, so the blackout models were relatively rare even in their time. They are even rarer today. It’s been theorized that in terms of the total war effort, the blackout cars were largely a symbolic gesture. But in galvanizing a nation behind a single cause, symbolism is important, too.
In the mid 1970s I was buying former Packard dealer inventories of spare parts. In one inventory out of a southern New Jersey dealership, I found dozens of right & left taillight frames in the original boxes. These fit 1941-1948 Packards Normally these were chromed pot metal, but those in this selection were a medium brown color, matching the look of the grill parts in the photo above.
They were impossible to sell, so I ended up stripping off the brown paint, and sent them out to be plated, as they were pit-free.
As a Canadian born in 1944, I learned later in my school years about history in general and of coarse WWII. I don’t remember if we were taught the reasons for the U. S. not joining in until 1942 but it seemed odd to us Canadian kids. But, of coarse, we are tightly knit with Britain to this day. The thing is I love the 1939-41 Ford models and owned a 1940 Ford in my high school years. The point being that so many interesting things in my life (and most car-nut lives) is how we look at things based on the cars we have owned or admired rather than how life was treating us at the time. I seem to recall the odd black-out running around Regina when I was a kid, but it might be just wishful thinking.
The US was in it from ’37 supplying materiels and food to the UK, but even though we were losing merchant ships to the U-boats, the isolationists led by Charles Lindbergh had enough clout to keep us out until Pearl Harbor. Then Hitler declared war on us a few days later.
My dad went into the 82nd Airborne when I was 3 weeks old, guess he couldn’t stand the crying.