ALONG AUTO ROW Oakland Produces Plastic-Car Body ;', By HOMER D. FEY, England's largest seWnf truck in ita price class, tho Thames, baa recently made' ita : appearance in the Bay -area and, has caused quite a 1 flurry, of, sales Interest Big load space; ease .of handling, economy of opera-" tion and low cost combine to make it a potential hit with operators of small light delivery panels. The Thames is highly eco-nomical to buy, operata 'and maintain, according to Cecil Whitebone, distributor for Northern California. Bay area operators are1 reporting mileage as high as 30 to S3 miles to the gallon in the country and suburbs and 28 to 30 in heavy city traffic. IK 120 cubic feet of loading space meets the needs of many users who want a small, fast, economical delivery vehicle to service their customers. The Thames truck, along with Britr ish-built Ford passenger pleasure cars, art handled in the Xastbay by Clarence Bull-winkel, of Oakland. : Awards by Dodge Salesmen for Dodge dealerships in the Eastbay are being honored this week by the Dodge division of the Chrysler Corpor- ' ation for outstanding accomplishment in the retailing of Dodge passenger cars and trucks. , As a result of high retail sales, leading salesmen will receive a charter membership in the Dodge "400" Club, and be presented with a special pin and club membership certificate by Jtobert K Dull, Dodge district manager. The club is a perma- nent organization with membership each year determined by the best individual sales records. As members of the club, these Xastbay salesmen will have as associates other top Dodge salesmen throughout toe country. Salesmen who received official word of their sales success in a congratulatory message . from E. C. Dock, general sales manager of Dodge in Detroit include D. Gill, L-Swensen, W. Whithead, A Jones, F. Stein-inger and J, Lowery of J. E. French Co.; D. Eberly and R. Vanier of Dana-Frane Motor Co.; E. Kuntz and S. Grant of Don Marquis, all of Oakland; A. Avery, E. Lowery, S. Dodge and W. Alstrand of J. E. French Co. in Berkeley; R. Postma, F. Dwyer A. McCauley and R. Bateman of Jack Erwin Motors in Alameda; W. Biggerstaff, C Godfrey, H. Hansen and G. Ward ' of Reese F. Starr, Inc., in Richmond; L. Kelley, and C Long of Jack Holland, Inc. in Hay-ward; and J. J. Bentley of Eisen-huth Motor Sales in Concord. Fibergf as-Plastic Car The largest fiberglas-plastie sports car body yet constructed, ' according to the manufacturers, was produced recently by the Industrial Plastics Service at " 4425 Linden Street. It was constructed of Astro lite liquid plastics, reinforced by Fiberglas manufactured by Owens-Corning Fiberglas Corp, and was built especially for Maverick Motors of Mountain View and will become standard equipment for the Maverick sports car. '.This "largest Fiberglas-plastie sports car body yet constructed," is designed to fit 123"-125 wheelbase ears the over-all length is 16 and width V "Weight approximately 220 pounds. The Maverick Company does' a complete job of rebuilding V-8 La Salle cars. Engine is re-bored to . standard Cad size, special grind three-quarter race cams, Edmonds Heads, Mallory ignition, dual exhaust, etc Steering an4 ;uspnsion . have been redesigned and car has a Tribune Auto Editor ) low center of gravity with 1W ground clearance.' Engine develops 207 Jxp. at 3600 r.p.m- and it is claimed the cars have a cruising-speed f 11C m.pi. It is planned to marked the Maver. ick sports car complete for , Our place in this picture is as follows: J. Fraser Rae is the owner of , Industrial Plastics Service, and has been associated with the plasties industry in the capacity - of technical consultant and instructor for over twenty years. Hero and There Van Peabody Jr., Broadway De Soto and Plymouth dealer, announces the appointment of W. B. "BUT Morrison to the sales staff. Bill has been identified with the Eastbay automobile industry since 1923 usually representing higher priced automobiles.' Earl Cunha, former metropolitan district manager, has been appointed San. Francisco xone business manager, Pontiae Motor Division, according to Don R. Stuart, zone manager. Cunha, who has been with the local zone since 1847, succeeds Glen Pace, who has been named assistant zone manager at the Portland, Ore, zone office. Ted Wheeler, popular veteran salesman for Lou Fox, Berkeley Studebaker, left recently (in his Studebaker) for . a vacation in the high Sierras with his- wife, Louise, and their three children. They expect to return after Labor Day. W. A. Abbott Jr, Ford Motor Company Richmond assembly plant manager; Neal Hammond, industrial relations manager, and A. Black, quality control manager, are in Dallas attend ing a manufacturing conference of executives of the Ford division. In addition to the Dearborn personnel, plant, industrial relations and quality control managers from Ford- assembly plants in Dallas, Kansas City, Long Beach and Richmond, are in attendance. Members of the De Soto Dealer Association of Northern California held a meeting last week at the California Golf Club at which preliminary plans were set up for a combined conclave with the Do Soto group of Southern California. The two-day affair will be held at -the Biltmore in. Santa Barbara dp. September J8 and 19. The program will have as speakers nationally-known automobile executives as well as top-flight regional personalities. Eastbay dealers taking an active part in planning the details of the coming state-wide meeting were: Tal Runnels of Berkeley, Van W.ipeabody Sr. and Van Jr, of Oakland; James . DiBari and Henry Vallerga of East Oakland; Adam and Bernard Weisgerber , of Richmond, and Alvin Joseph of Hayward Production of tubeless tires, one of the post-war products, is currently at an all-time high, according to John L. Colly er, president of the B. T. Goodrich Company which introduced the world's first tubeless tire in 1947 "More than a million tubeless tires have already been delivered to American motorists and the present rate of tubeless tire production in our plants is nearly triple that of last year as a re sult of the new standards of safety, service and mileage the new tire has established," the rubber company . executive de clared. -; f - - With a mileage record of over Fibreglas-plastic ' 1 1 '( ' a billion miles of owner driving behind it, the FirePower V-S 180 horsepower high-compression engine has proven, to be the least demanding service-wise of any engine Chrysler has produced, reports F. E. Van Hal-teren, director of service, Chrysler Sales Division,: Chrysler Corporation. Hi - 'When this engine was ready for production, we were faced with the fact that its efficiency was based on highly complex . sports car body manufactured in Oakland. mechanisms never before used in a mass-produced automobile "engine," Van Halteren said The faith of Chrysler engineers in this engine has been justified by the unexcelled performance and economy provided by the hemispherical combustion chamber introduced in the automotive field in the FirePower engine," he said. "Owners daily write us expressing their satisfaction with the hifih Derform- ance of this engine which, at the .1 .' ,y y.- .-'?;-X'';-vxw.. . ' " vrt same time, provides great economy of operation. This is outstanding in view of the fact that this engine delivers the highest output per cubic inch displacement of any engine on .the market today." t Don E. Ahrens, general manager of the Cadillac Motor Car Division, last week announced the appointment of W. S. Chis-holm as director of personnel and public relations for Cadillac.