MOSCOW (April 18): THE Russians today claimed superiority in another field - automobile production - and hinted that the American manufacturers were too slow at producing cars.
A Pravda article claimed Soviet automobile manufacturers for the first time in the history of the world's auto industry had developed new methods of conversion to a new type of car without ceasing production one minute.
For this process, I.A. Likhachiv, Director of the Stalin Auto Plant, and a group of engineers received the Stalin Prize this week.
Pravda said that when the Ford plant re-tooled for the manufacture of new type of trucks, cars production was halted for four weeks and took four or five months to reach the maximum level with a 300 per cent decline in output meanwhile.
Likhachiv, the paper said, turned out old model cars with a 57 per cent reduction in output while producing new model cars at the same time.
'The Stalin Auto Plant has pioneered a non-stop conversion conveyor system for the production of a new model car. Herein is one of the manifestations of the superiority of the Socialist system of economy over the capitalist ,' said Pravda.