See how the U.S. auto industry was converted back from war machine to engine of commerce in this in-depth 1946 documentary. 

Produced by the American Broadcasting Company and narrated by John Tillman, this 1946 news report deals with a seldom-examined period in the U.S. auto industry: the years just after the end of World War II. As the auto companies scrambled to reverse course and shift from military production back to auto manufacturing, it proved to be a vast and complicated undertaking. The industry had been dismantled virtually overnight to construct the greatest military production machine in world history, “the arsenal of democracy” as President Franklin D. Roosevelt called it. Now the entire mechanism of civilian auto production had to be reassembled.

In the reconversion, materials and manpower shortages crippled the effort. In the first nine months after the resumption of production, the automakers struggled to produce  20 percent of the 1941 output, and annual volume would not return to pre-war levels until 1949. Meanwhile, years of pent-up demand and newly prosperous American consumers combined with the production shortfall to create a sellers’ market for new automobiles. While this documentary is rather long by web-surfing standards at 30 minutes, it covers an important but seldom-explored period in the hsitory of the Motor City. Video below.