Those who attempted to shake off the gloom by attending the World's Fair in Chicago saw three very special autos, not the least of which was a Pierce-Arrow; however, the 1933 Pierce Silver Arrow would soon be introduced. By 1933, America was a nation looking for work. Unemployment ran one in four nationally and was much higher in cities. Banks were shut against depositors unable to get at their own savings. Former millionaires were begging for low-wage jobs. There was no government-sponsored work relief, let alone medical- or family-aid programs. The record seems to indicate that Franklin Delano Roosevelt probably did not save the republic for capitalism, but those who remember the Threadbare Thirties can be excused for thinking he did. Whatever the success or failure of his programs, FDR imparted something else that was, in the end, more important: hope. Still, it took a new world war to end "hard times" for good. The automobile industry reflected the national misery.

From a healthy 4.5 million cars in 1929, annual production slid to barely a million in three years. Ford, which had once built 1.8 million cars in a year, settled for 335,000 in 1933. Among smaller manufacturers, bankruptcies, mergers, and desperation tactics were legion. The Great Depression was especially hard on luxury makes, whose market almost disappeared. Peerless and Marmon, two of America's grandest marques, built beautiful Sixteens that nobody wanted, and both companies were gone by 1933. Even their stronger competitors had trouble. It wasn't simply that former Cadillac, Packard, and Lincoln customers could no longer afford those cars -- many had marshalled their money and insulated themselves from the slump -- but that those who could simply preferred not to be seen in them. For a couple of years after the Wall Street Crash, the nation acted stunned, for it had never seen anything like this before and its leaders seemed powerless to cope. Slowly, however, the country's spirit revived, See details and though the economy only got worse into 1933, institutions public and private began putting on a brave face, fearing nothing but fear itself, projecting dreams of a bright new future just around the corner.

Roosevelt signed the Federal Emergency Relief Act and an alphabet soup of other "New Deal" programs, Hollywood produced 550 films (one of the few entertainments people could still afford), Robert Byrd began his second South Pole exploration, Sir Malcolm Campbell broke the land speed record at over 270 mph, the New York Giants beat the Washington Senators four games to one in the World Series, and Chicago proclaimed a "Century of Progress" at its World's Fair Exposition on the shores of Lake Michigan. Auto manufacturers looked upon all this with their traditional enthusiasm, trying to comprehend how they might turn disaster into opportunity. Luxury-car makers dealt with the situation in various ways. Cadillac, though sheltered under the large General Motors umbrella, cut back har over as president and Studebaker engineers designed Pierce's 1929 Eight. Toward the end of the 1920s, Pierce, whose sales had initially picked up under Studebaker's aegis, joined an industry trend toward multi-cylinder engines. That turned out to be precisely the wrong time, as both companies soon learned, but nobody could know it when the projects were begun. Indeed, Pierce's fortunes didn't immediately plummet after the Wall Street fiasco. Sales picked up after Studebaker's takeover to reach a record 9,700 in 1929. The 1930 total was down to 6,795, but that was still the second-best performance in Pierce history. Wise's V-12 was initially offered in two sizes, 398 and 429 cubic inches, but the smaller version was dropped after 1932 because it didn't perform any better than the Pierce straight-eight. To keep up in the horsepower race, a 462-cubic inches version was added for 1933, packing 175 horsepower (versus 160 for that year's 429 and 135 for the eight).