Before the war, aircraft construction had been essentially a craft industry. Part of the prewar program of expansion was aimed simply at the extension of production capacity, so that even obsolete types were turned out so that mass production techniques might be developed in a hitherto craft-based industry. Car firms became component suppliers, and in this way over time familiarity with mass construction to higher engineering standards was transferred to postwar civilian consumer production.

Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, loc. 406