When the sports car craze hit America after World War II, what passed for a sports car could be very different from company to company.  At Chevrolet and Kaiser, a sports car was a traditional chassis with a sporty fiberglass body thrown on top.  Chevrolet put a Motorama show car into production with few changes, while Kaiser enlisted the services of designer “Dutch” Darrin to come up with one of the most distinctly styled automobiles in American history.  That unique Kaiser is now highly desired as a collectible, if not for its sports car attributes.  If you are looking for a rare early sports car with spectacular styling cues, this 1954 Kaiser Darrin for sale on Facebook Marketplace in Massillon, Ohio may be the car for you.  Perfectly restored, this sliding-door styling masterpiece can be yours for $81,700.  Do you think this is a fair price for a milestone fifties automobile?  Thanks go to Zappenduster for the tip!

By the early fifties, the postwar boom in automobile sales was long over.  Automakers had to innovate once again and producing a reliable wasn’t enough to lure customers into the showroom.  Having a new V-8 under the hood helped, but what if your V-8 wasn’t ready yet?  That was the dilemma facing Kaiser.  They had a V-8 on the drawing board, but sales were in the tank for this independent automaker.  To drum up interest, they turned to designer Dutch Darrin for a miracle.  Darrin delivered a distinctive sports car with a unique “kissing” grille and a set of doors that opened by sliding into the fender.  It was unlike anything consumers had ever seen and that was just fine for Kaiser.  The goal was to attract customers to Kaiser showrooms.

Sadly, the car’s performance didn’t live up to its looks.  It was built on a modified Henry J chassis with an inline six-cylinder engine and a three-speed manual transmission.  Despite weighing just 2,176 lbs, the car’s engine put out a paltry 90 horsepower.  The Henry J chassis wasn’t exactly a model for structural rigidity either.  Customers who were looking for a traditional sports car with some horsepower and a chassis capable of conquering twisty roads were disappointed.  To be fair, the same complaints almost torpedoed the Corvette.  It seems that American automobile manufacturers had trouble understanding the difference between a luxury two-seater and one designed for sporting purposes.  By the time it was all over, 435 Darrins and 6 prototypes were built.  The car did succeed in drawing curious customers into the showroom.  However, the money spent on the exercise probably accelerated the Kaiser nameplate’s exit from the American market.

Decades later, the once-forgotten Kaiser Darrin has emerged as one of the most collectible cars of the fifties.  The unique, if cumbersome, sliding doors and the “kissing” grille have endeared themselves in the hearts of collectors.  This example has just 42,204 miles on the odometer and is in excellent condition.  While this car has obviously been fully restored sometime in the recent past, we are not told if the mileage is original or if it was reset during the restoration.  We are told precious little in the ad to be frank.  The pictures posted do a good job of displaying the restorer’s attention to detail, but a comprehensive description would go a long way toward justifying the car’s price.  Those pictures are also a good look into how beautiful every aspect of the Kaiser Darrin’s lines are, especially in a mint green finish.

The pictures show not just a stunning automobile but a glimpse into just how creative car manufacturers could be during the fifties.  While the Kaiser Darrin did not prevent Kaiser from giving up on the U.S. market and it never proved to be much of a sports car in the traditional sense, it did allow Kaiser to show that it was capable of producing a very distinctive car when its back was to the wall.  If a V-8 had come along a few years earlier, maybe the automaker’s history would be different and the Corvette would still have a domestic competitor.