If this car looks familiar to our regular Barn Finds readers it’s because we have featured it before. Scotty G wrote this article about this car in November 2017. I considered not writing a second article about it but thought that it was worth a second viewing. You will find this pickup for sale here on Craigslist. It is located in Taos, New Mexico, and has a clean title. The seller has listed it with a price of $6,500. A big shout-out goes to Barn Finder Ikey H for bringing this car to our attention.
The price is the main reason that I started to investigate this car. What I found helped me to decide to write a fresh article on this car. When Scotty wrote this one up it was listed on eBay with a price of $10,000. The response must have been quite underwhelming because here we are some ten months later and the price has dropped by a third. The story goes that that Earl Muntz commissioned concept pickups to be built using Kaiser 4-door sedans as the basis. The idea was that Muntz intended to demonstrate to Henry Kaiser that the market for such a vehicle actually existed.
This is where the water gets a bit muddy though. The concept vehicles were fabricated and assembled by Betts Curtis Motors of Long Beach, California. Various sources indicate that there were three prototypes built while others indicate that there were four. Regardless of whether there were three or four, there is only one that is confirmed to still exist which is pictured above. It was recently displayed at the AACA Museum in Hershey, Pennsylvania. That car muddies the water even further as it has been further customized by the current owner, so there are further variations to consider between that car and our feature car. If our feature car is indeed the real deal concept car built for Earl “Madman” Muntz, then it is a true collectible. I guess the hardest part is going to be confirming that.
The good news about this car is that it appears to be largely complete. There are no obvious major components that are missing from the car, and what should be the original 226ci 6-cylinder engine and manual transmission are still in place. The seller even claims that it would probably start if fitted with a new starter. He also has the original steel wheels for the vehicle. One interesting point is that the three (or four) concept vehicles were reputed to not have worn the Kaiser badge on the hood, but were fitted with custom badges featuring the Napoleon-like character that was the Muntz trademark. Close examination of the photos of this vehicle shows a standard Kaiser badge in one photo and no badge in the others.
So is it the real deal? That’s a tough one to answer. The seller states that he has been contacted by the AACA Museum with a view to exhibiting this pickup beside the one pictured above. Comparing these two vehicles side-by-side will answer some questions, but raise a heap of new ones. The one confirmed pickup has been modified by its current owner and now sports a number of body modifications and a new drive-train. When Scotty wrote his original article on this car he concluded that the vehicle deserved a full restoration. I think that we can agree on that one.
I have my doubts that this is one of the Muntz prototypes.
I’d be surprised that Earl Muntz would use an upmarket Fraser over a base-model Kaiser to cobble up his pickups, especially to impress Henry J Kaiser.
Also, the quality of the cab roof is not what I’d expect to see. It looks like a ’40s Chevy or GMC rear panel was thrown into place, and its fit and final execution is nothing like the Posies’ example. Again, Earl Muntz was a very shrewd (and successful!) businessman and wouldn’t have cut corners (pun intended) to create something to wow Mr Kaiser and/or Joseph Fraser. Remember that Fraser was the head of Graham-Paige and had many years of experience in the industry and that Henry J was a successful industrialist.
Then there’s the claim that the AACA wanted this example for its museum. If the car/truck was the real-deal, I would have thought that the organisation would have acquired it. Perhaps this is a case of male bovine faeces?
This former (non-factory) installer of Muntz Stereo-Paks look forward to what the others have to say…
I call fake on this one. Probably built from a sedan in some guy’s backyard long, long ago as a copy “inspired” by the Muntz cars. There are period pictures of one of the original cars and the level of finish is much better than this car ever thought of being. Also, there are many detail differences. Interesting car though in its own right but not worth anywhere near the asking.
If it just needs a starter why doesn’t he rebuild it . It would be worth more, But not his asking price. This truck was hashed over on the Kaiser Frazer site and deemed not a Muntz. It does deserve to get running at least and restored as a cool Frazier pick up. Instead of just rotting away.
The top rail of the bed doesn’t look like a clean enough design to show the head of a car company.
The green one certainly was, but the featured truck is very different.
Hmm…wonder if this may have been the inspiration for this guy:
https://www.motor1.com/photo/2817363/chevrolet-ssr/
Yuck. No Thank You.
When a K-F dealership needed a shop truck, they directed the body shop to make one of these. Got plenty of attention and very practical. This is either one of those, or a typical “El Ranchero” backyard truck.
Where’s Howard? I think he lives only a couple hours from Taos, can he do a road trip and check this out?
I do? I’m not driving my gas hog GMC across the desert for some pig in a poke Kaiser pickup, I’m a busy man( crickets),,although, it is cool. I think it’s the real deal, as I read, sometimes Kaiser dealerships would make their own pickups out of sedans for their use and there could be some variations from the factory ones. Still, probably one of the rarest finds to come through here. Surely destined for that 700 hp. mombo motor for $25g’s, so it can sit in a garage somewhere.
The green truck was finished at Posies. It had been to at least one other shop before it was completed. The owner had some documentation of those trucks and their origin. There is a Muntz 4 track player mounted in the truck. I know this because I worked on the truck at Posies. It would be hard to compare this to an original as there are so many body modifications. I like different and unusual stuff. This is why I check out Barn Finds daily. My shop truck is a 59 Edsel wagon.
My dad bought a new Kaiser Manhattan in 1953 and I remember that the dealership had one of these pickups they used for light service and to chase parts with. That was in Davenport, Iowa.