American Automobile Manufacturers Association

The Automobile Manufacturers Association was a trade group of automobile manufacturers which operated under various names in the United States from 1911 to 1999.

A different group called the Automobile Manufacturers' Association was active in the very early 1900s, but then dissolved. Another early group was the Association of Licensed Automobile Manufacturers, formed in 1903 and which was involved in licensing and collecting royalties from the George Baldwin Selden engine patent.Henry Ford effectively defeated the patent in court in 1911 and the Association of Licensed Automobile Manufacturers dissolved.

However, the same manufacturers regrouped later in 1911 and formed the Automobile Board of Trade. In 1913, this became the National Automobile Chamber of Commerce.

In 1934, this group renamed itself to the Automobile Manufacturers Association. This was the name the group had the longest and became the best known by. It focused upon establishing a code for fair competition. In 1939, it moved its headquarters from New York City, where it had been close to bankers, to Detroit, where the manufacturers were all based. The organization had a budget of $1 million at the time. During the early stages of World War II, the association played a role in adapting American automotive manufacturing capabilities towards arms production efforts, especially regarding large aircraft engines. Within hours of the December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, the association invited all companies in the larger automotive industry, regardless of whether they were association members, to join a new cooperative undertaking, the Automotive Council for War Production. Some 654 manufacturing companies joined, and produced nearly $29 billion in output, including tremendous numbers of motorized vehicles, tanks, engines, and other products for the Allied military forces. Between a fifth and a quarter of all U.S. wartime production was accounted for by the automotive industry. In 1950, the association published the book, Freedom's Arsenal: The Story of the Automotive Council for War Production, to document this achievement.

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