Quote:
Originally Posted by Jeff Hamlin
I don't think it would have been good buisness not to.....
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They didn't have a choice. The government was able to order GM (and everyone else) to stop civilian production and only produce wartime products. They also told the various companies what to build.
As the story goes, the government wanted GM to participate in the B-29 consortium. GM really didn't want to, arguing that they were already at 100% capacity with the other stuff they were making. GM got the bright idea that if they had a project that was just as important to the war effort as the B-29 maybe they could convince the government they shouldn't be in the B-29 program.
Enter the Fisher P-75 Eagle. (Body by Fisher)
After searching around a bit, they decided to build a fighter plane. Since GM didn't have a lot of experience building fighters, they decided that using existing parts would help. They took 2 Allison V-12s and mated them together, placed the engine behind the pilot (much like a P-39), and added counter-rotating propellers. They used the P-40 wings, F4U landing gear and an A-24 tail.
The resulting plane was a miserable failure and the program was canceled late 1944.
http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/fac...et.asp?id=2221