The war orders for motor vehicles (including bicycles and trailers) of all sorts from American factories called for the production of 434,000 of them. Of this number approximately 110,000 were bicycles and trailers, the rest being motor vehicles proper. The war industry had produced great numbers of these vehicles before the armistice, 118,000 having been shipped to the A. E. F., while thousands of others were either in use by the Army within the United States or were awaiting shipment overseas on the day of the armistice. By the fourth day of the armistice, termination requests had stopped the production of 178,000 vehicles under the war orders. The rest were allowed to go through to completion. Adding to the reserves on hand at the signing of the armistice the production after the armistice, we find that the results of the war industry were to provide the Army in this country with 138,000 motor vehicles, none of which had crossed the ocean. [Illustration: _Photo by Signal Corps_ MOTOR TRANSPORT IN FRANCE] [Illustration: _Photo by Signal Corps_ PART OF A. E. F.’S SURPLUS MOTOR EQUIPMENT] The continuation of production after the armistice was allowed for numerous reasons. A motor truck is an article readily salable at a good price. Its fabricated parts, however, have little value other than that of scrap metal. Moreover, to permit the completion of contracts saved the Government from the payment of cancellation charges. For example, as a result of these business considerations one order for 8,000 Standard B trucks, under which order production had started about November 1, 1918, was allowed to go through to completion. The Standard B truck was an assemblage of standard parts. Many factories made the parts, and a few, under contract with the Government, assembled the parts and turned out the completed chassis. To have terminated the contracts would have left on the Government’s hands a mass of parts of doubtful sales value and an obligation to pay heavy cancellation charges besides. The completed trucks could be sold for nearly all, if not all, the money the Government had put into them. The same was true of some of the other standardized trucks. Production was continued in some instances to place in the Army’s hands certain sorts of trucks of which the Army was short even after the great production ending with the armistice. Finally, many of the truck factories were working exclusively on government contracts, and to have ended this work forthwith would have thrown tens of thousands of men out of work. It is notable, however, that two of the largest contractors, the Ford Motor Company and the Dodge Motor Company, both of Detroit, agreed to accept termination of all work uncompleted on November 16, 1918, at no cost to the Government except the cost of uncompleted materials which they would be unable to use in their commercial enterprises.