Kaiser

US, 1946 – 1954

(1) Kaiser-Frazer Corporation, Willow Run, Mich., 1946 – 1953

(2) Kaiser-Willys Sales Corp, Toledo, Ohio, 1954

The Kaiser car was the most successful post-war ‘invasion’ of the American automobile industry, the creation of a combine headed by shipbuilder Henry J. Kaiser and Jospeh W. Frazer of Graham-Paige. Howard Darrin styled the original prototype Kaiser car, but it was much revised by KF Styling under Robert Cadwallader. Frazer had rented, and KF later bought, the huge Willow Run plant built by Henry Ford for wartime manufacture of the B24 Liberator bomber. Early plans called for a low-medium-priced Kaiser car and a more expensive ‘custom’ Frazer. The Kaiser car prototype shown to the public in 1946 displayed unit construction, torsion-bar suspension and front-wheel drive, and its (and Frazer’s) new straight-through side styling set a trend on Kaiser cars that all the industry would follow. Complications and costs precluded these mechanical ideas from the production Kaiser Special, however, which had conventional box-section frame, hypoid rear drive and coil-spring independent rear suspension. The engine of the Kaiser car was an improvement on the pre-World War 2 Continental design, a sv 6-cylinder 3.7-litre unit developing 100bhp. This Kaiser car was gradually stepped up to 112, 118 and finally 140bhp in the supercharged Kaiser Manhattan for 1954 – 1955. But try as they might, the Kaiser car company could not permanently maintain their position, though they ranked eighth and built about 140.000 Kaiser cars during both 1947 and 1948, to lead all the other American independents including Studebaker, Hudson and Nash.

The Kaiser car is remembered for its novel ideas and innovations. Among these, along with the first through-fenderline for 1947, were the Kaiser Traveler and Kaiser Vagabond utility models that looked like sedans but opened up at the rear like station wagons, and these Kaiser cars had large flat beds created by drop-down seats; one of the first hardtops in the 1949 4-door Kaiser Virginian; the first (with Frazer) post-war 4-door convertible; the Kaiser Dragon line of luxuriously trimmed, padded-top sedans of 1951 – 1953; and of course the brilliant 1954 – 1955 line of Kaiser Manhattans and Kaiser Specials with concave grille designed by A.B. Grisinger and ‘safety-glo’ tail lights, styled by Herbert Weissinger, extending up along the rear fenders, along with Darrin’s novel sliding-door Kaiser Darrin roadster. The 1951 – 1955 ‘anatomic design’ Kaiser car was among the most inspired US sedan designs of the period.

Altogether Kaiser-Frazer produced over 747.000 cars and Kaiser-Willys combined for 25.000 more in 1954 – 1955. Of these, about 500.000 or more were Kaiser cars. The Kaiser car make was phased out in 1955, when only 260 Kaiser car left-overs were sold as 1955 models and 1.006 Manhattans were exported to Argentina, where they were soon to be manufactured as the ‘Kaiser Carabela’ from 1958 to 1962.

Source: Georgano, encyclopedia of motorcar; HON, RML

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