Some of the most interesting cars that we come across for review are, I believe, what I would call fallen flag marques and Kaiser-Frazer certainly is one of the more notable. There are so many reasons why various different brands failed, and the reasons are similar to those that can be applied to many products. The post-war years were a time of unbridled enthusiasm that saw the explosion of suburbs and road construction. Trains and trolleys were out, cars were in and survival of the fittest ruled. The GM, Ford & Chrysler juggernaut grew exponentially while others like Nash, Hudson, Kaiser, Willys, Studebaker, and Packard sought relief in mergers. Before all of that, however, we had Kaiser-Frazer and today we’ll review a Kaiser Special from 1948. It’s located in West Bloomfield, Michigan and is available, here on craigslist for $3,400. Thanks to T.J. for this find!
The Kaiser-Frazer Corporation, and its follow-on, Kaiser Motors was founded during that time of mid/late -40s irrational exuberance for all things automotive. Its passenger car business existed, domestically, from 1947 until 1955 and was then left mostly as a manufacturer of Jeeps, thanks to its 1953 hook-up with Willys-Overland. The first shoe to drop was the elimination of the Frazer brand in 1951 and then Kaiser skedaddled for Argentina in 1955 leaving just the Willys/Jeep which eventually became Kaiser-Jeep. American Motors (the Nash & Hudson lashup) acquired what was left of Kaiser’s domestic vehicle business in early 1970. For 1948, Frazer produced about 48K cars, putting them in seventeenth place. The number fourteen finisher was Kaiser with about 91K copies. And just for some perspective, number one Chevrolet rang up 696K units.
It is not stated which model of Kaiser our find is but the lack of badging and associated trim tells me it’s probably a Special. The seller advises, “It was running before I put it in storage 12 years ago“. Yeah, well twelve years is a long time and a lot of sitting around can cause all kinds of mechanical things to go wrong. The engine in question, the one that ran twelve years ago, is a 100 HP, 226 CI, flathead six, tethered to a three-speed manual transmission. At the least, it would be good to know if it will turn over by hand.
It is suggested that “It’s an excellent restoration project that just needs a little time to complete“. The body appears to be in pretty sound shape though it is devoid of most of its trim. There is some surface rust in places, and maybe a bit more brewing in the passenger side rocker panel – the images are not concise enough to know with certainty. There are a few shots of the underside and both surface rust and scale can be observed but there is no visual indication of rot-through. Back to that “little time to complete” thought – it’s good to be enthusiastic but these things, depending on how far the next owner wants to go, always takes longer than anticipated.
The interior is pretty non-descript. The cloth seating upholstery is fair but the headliner is holy and the dash and instrument panel are a bit crusty looking. Many cars of this era have really impressive dashboards, this one, not so much so but the oversized chrome bezel/grille, parked in the center, is an attention-getter.
There you have it, a pretty good representative from what was considered to be an independent auto manufacturer – not being part of the GM/Ford/Chrysler cabal. Why didn’t Kazer, or Fraiser for that matter, survive? Probably not enough product differentiation, pricing power, and capital access – among other reasons. We know the current state of many ’20s and ’30s cars and how the interest in those has faded, with that same fate befall the independents like this 1948 Kaiser?
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