Throughout the 1930s, airplanes were generally built one at a time, which limited output. Automobiles, however, were mass-produced on assembly lines, and when war came, the nation turned to car manufacturers to help speed up the process. In 1940, with Europe embroiled in war, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt requested that “this nation [gear] up to the ability to turn out at least 50,000 planes a year,” and asked Congress for a significant increase in defense spending.
