WHITE EXPANSION IN EUROPE By A. J. P. Wilding THE
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formation of an international division to be based in Europe was announced this week by the White Motor Corporation of America. Speaking at a Press conference in Geneva on Tuesday, Mr. J. N. Bauman, president of White, said it was becoming increasingly difficult to keep pace with the growth of foreign markets without foreign assembly or manufacturing plants and that the first task of the new division would be to study growth areas to see what opportunities existed.
At the moment, the only concrete steps taken have been the appointment of a board of top executives who will be based in Paris. Mr. Bauman is now on a tour of European markets with Mr. J. P. Dragin, executive vice-president of White, to investigate the possibilities, and although Britain has already been visited was told it was believed that any initial manufacturing and marketing organization would he set up on the mainland of En rope.
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It is not yet certain that White will enter the European market on a large scale, but two basic possibilities exist: either setting up an organization from scratch, building factories and so on, or taking over an existing manufacturing company and distribution network. In the latter case there are a number of European vehicle makers who could be considered, particularly if the vehicle side were a small part of an industrial organization. This is common in Germany, a good example being Krupp and Henschel.
White is one of America's major manufacturers of heavy-duty commercial vehicles. Net sales in 1965 have been calculated at between 575m. and 600m. dollars. Mr. Bauman predicted that revenues for the Corporation would reach 750m. dollars by 1969.
Companies in the Corporation include Diamond T, Autocar and Reo as well as White, and other activities are in the field of agricultural and industrial tractors and equipment and stationary engines. White has close links with Cummins and if it had not been for government intervention would have taken over this company a short while ago.
Cummins' units are used throughout the White range and an interesting point was made by Mr. Bauman that his company was at present working on the development of a petrol version of Cummins VALE lightweight V8 diesel in co-operation with Cummins. This petrol unit should give an output of around 250 b.h.p. and at the same time White is developing on its own a new range of lightweight diesels with outputs from 250 to 350 b.h.p. An interesting point was that the V8 petrol unit was giving between 0-45 and 0-5113113.h.p./hour, with a compression ratio greater than 8 to 1.
Van Lines Wound Up: North American Van Lines Inc. is going to wind up its Luxemburg subsidiary. North American Van Lines Europe .SA, which was set up in September. 1959.