A Look Back…Celebrating 90 Years

NJ CAR traces its history back to 1918 and the creation of the New Jersey Automotive Trade Association (NJATA). NJATA and NATA relied heavily on each other for more than 25 years, until 1944, when two separate dues structures were introduced.

In 1947, the State association, NJATA, was officially incorporated and used that name for twenty years. In 1967, the name was changed to the New Jersey Automobile Dealers Association (NJADA) and finally to its current name, New Jersey Coalition of Automotive Retailers, Inc., (NJ CAR) in 1995.

We hope you’ll enjoy a look back into the history (and pre-history) of the Coalition.

¨ The Office of Production Management in Washington banned all sales of new passenger automobiles from January 1, 1942 until February 2, 1942. A rationing program was instituted in late February 1942.

¨ Tire rationing and gasoline rationing also impacted the industry in 1942.

¨ The Brookings Institution published a 47-page pamphlet (see attached Cover), entitled “Automobile Transportation in the War Effort,” which detailed why viable automobiles were required to “maintain the domestic economy.”

Look for more fun and interesting pieces of history in NewsLetters throughout the rest of 2008.