Kaiser-Frazer deserves credit for experimenting with offbeat ideas. Unfortunately, most of them didn’t work very well. This is why the fledgling automaker is a useful case study of how trying to be “innovative” can backfire if the execution hasn’t been well thought out.
Henry J. Kaiser had similarities to Elon Musk. Both did not have prior background in the auto industry — and argued that it needed fresh thinking. Richard M. Langworth noted that “Henry’s clean-slate approach applied to every phase of building automobiles from blank-paper designing to construction of humble bumpers and dashboards” (1975, p. 31).
The first-generation Kaiser and Frazer were sort-of innovative when they were introduced in August of 1946 because they were among the first truly postwar designs. However, the cars were decidedly conventional compared to initial proposals, which included front-wheel drive, torsion-bar suspension and even fiberglass bodies (Langworth, 1975).
By 1949 Kaiser and Frazer cars would become old hat in the face of the Big Three’s first wave of postwar designs. The automaker couldn’t yet afford a redesign so decided to broaden its lineup, which had consisted solely of a four-door sedan. Three body styles were added. To save money, all of the new models — a hatchback, hardtop and convertible — used four-door body architecture.
Utility sedan was a cross between a sedan and wagon
The most innovative idea Kaiser-Frazer came up with was a forerunner to the modern hatchback. Designers carved out of the sedan a two-piece, clamshell-style rear door. The top part opened like a hatchback but the bottom folded out like the tailgate of a wagon. The latter increased the car’s loading area. In addition, when the back seat was folded, an uninterrupted flat surface was created.
The biggest problem with the utility sedan was that the left back door was sealed shut so the spare tire could be stored without intruding into the cargo area. It looked weird and reduced both the roominess and accessibility of the back seat.
The utility sedan was only offered on the Kaiser for 1949-50. Output for both the entry-level Traveler and fancier Vagagond topped 24,000 units, which was almost 26 percent of total Kaiser output. In 1951 the Frazer received the body style and it generated almost 28 percent of the brand’s production in its dying year.
The spare tire was moved under the rear floor when the big Kaiser’s body was redesigned in 1951. That worked better but robbed the trunk of already scarce space. This was the result of the new Kaiser’s lower-slung teardrop shape. Production started off weak — under 4,000 units in 1951 — and trickled to such a low level that the body style was discontinued for 1954.
Four-door hardtop had an odd stylistic quirk
Kaiser-Frazer can rightly call itself the pioneer of the four-door hardtop — a body style that became popular in the mid-50s. Alas, once again the automaker came up with a quirky design that undercut the whole point of the body style.
Also see ‘1948 Hudson ‘step-down’ was a brilliant car with tragic flaws’
The hardtop’s biggest problem was that it had a substantial B-pillar post below the beltline. That led designers to fill the space between the front and back windows with a stationary glass panel. It wasn’t as bad as on the convertible (see below), but a thinner sheetmetal pillar would have looked better and perhaps given the car more structural rigidity.
The hardtop was offered only on the top-end Kaiser Virginian. Its list price ($2,995) was above an Oldsmobile Ninety-Eight Holiday two-door hardtop ($2,973) and an entry-level Cadillac Series 61 ($2,893) four-door sedan.
The Virginian lacked the cachet of its competitors and was underpowered. Kaiser had access to a 226 cubic-inch straight six that produced a maximum of 112 brake horsepower. In contrast, the Ninety-Eight had a trendy new V8 with 303 cubic inches and 135 horsepower.
Only 935 Virginians were produced in 1949-50. For 1951 the hardtop moved to the Frazer line, where 152 hardtops were produced. This represented less than 2 percent of Frazer output.
Kaiser-Frazer revived the four-door convertible
Using a four-door body may have been the only way that Kaiser-Frazer could have afforded to offer a convertible, but one might question whether it was worth it. No other U.S. automaker had offered this body style after World War II for a good reason — they hadn’t sold well prior to the war.
Perhaps Kaiser-Frazer management thought it was okay if their convertible sold poorly because the body style would function as an image-enhancing halo model. Tooling costs were also presumably lessened because the convertible shared body parts such as doors with the hardtop.
The convertibles were not as overpriced as the hardtop, but they were still in rarified territory. In 1949 the Kaiser convertible went for $3,195 and the Frazer Manhattan for $3,295. Both models were priced higher than a Buick Roadmaster ($3,150) but lower than a Cadillac Series 62 ($3,497) convertible.
Only 22 Kaiser and 65 Frazer convertibles were built in 1949-50. Langworth noted that a large inventory of unsold 1949 convertibles and hardtops indicated an “extreme failure” of both body styles. “Their prices certainly had a lot to do with that; no matter what was offered, the public didn’t seem able to conceive of either the Kaiser or the Frazer as a high-priced car” (1975, p. 107).
Kaiser-Frazer management belatedly recognized that its prices were too high. In 1951 the sole surviving convertible, which was offered on the Frazer Manhattan, listed for $120 less than in previous years. That may have helped, but not by much: Frazer output doubled to a whopping 131 units.
New models failed to keep sales from tanking
If Kaiser-Frazer’s expanded lineup was supposed to help it better compete against a veritable Spanish armada of redesigned Big Three cars, that gambit utterly failed. Calendar-year production fell from around 181,000 units in 1948 to only 58,000 in 1949.
Also see ‘1933-42 Willys offered a better template for an import beater’
To make matters worse, Henry Kaiser insisted on an aggressive production schedule over the objections of Joe Frazer. At that point Frazer quietly stepped back from an active role with the automaker, but his dire predictions turned out to be prescient (Langworth, 1975).
The utility sedan was the only new body style that made up a meaningful proportion of total Kaiser-Frazer sales in 1949-50. Indeed, all three body styles performed poorly enough that Kaiser-Frazer might have been better off investing its limited resources elsewhere, such as in a more substantial facelift.
That said, the utility sedan made the most sense, partly because it did not require an entirely new roofline. The hatchback was also a better fit with Kaiser’s rather bland but roomy body than the hardtop and convertible. And why did management think that the latter body styles were viable when priced in the same realm as the Buick Roadmaster and lower-end Cadillacs?
The failure of Kaiser-Frazer’s new body styles hints at how the automaker might have been more successful if its attempts at innovation had been more realistic.
NOTES:
Product specifications and production figures are from the auto editors of Consumer Guide (2006), Gunnell (2002) and Langworth (1975).
RE:SOURCES
- Auto editors of Consumer Guide; 2002. Encyclopedia of American Cars. Publications International, Lincolnwood, Ill.
- Gunnell, John; 2002. Standard Catalog of American Cars, 1946-1975. Revised 4th Ed. Krause Publications, Iola, WI.
- Langworth, Richard M.; 1975. Kaiser-Frazer: The Last Onslaught on Detroit. Princeton Publishing, Princeton, NJ.
ADVERTISING & BROCHURES:
- wildaboutcarsonline.com (Automotive History Preservation Society): Frazer (1949, 1951)
- oldcaradvertising.com: Kaiser (1949)
- oldcarbrochures.org: Kaiser (1949, 1951)
One of the memes in this magazine is condemnation of Detroit groupthink. But thinking outside the group too often leads to failure. IIRC DeSoto and maybe Dodge had a similar vehicle but with a regular trunk lid and pass through. It also had a folding rear seat. However, the brands also offered standard station wagons. I was always a fan of large 5 door cars, but I seem to be the only one, and it was even so in 1949. Ditto with compacts, except for Nash. BTW, per the heading photograph, I wasn’t aware Mary Kay Cosmetics existed in 1949.
I wouldn’t argue that the automaker which steadfastly rejects the dominant approaches of a given era would have been guaranteed success. It’s a matter of judgment as to when to conform and when to deviate. Perhaps even more importantly, the quality of execution counts.
For example, in the above story I suggest that the Kaiser utility sedan could have been more successful if the spare tire had been stored in the trunk. That would have reduced cargo capacity (at least without moving the spare), but people arguably tend to use the back seat more often than they load up their car with large, bulky items.
I place an emphasis on groupthink because it seems to me that, in general, this has been a bigger problem than innovation misfires. In addition, I don’t think automotive history gives enough attention to this dynamic.
Of course, that perspective may represent a small minority among automotive historians, both professional and armchair. Which is fine. My primary goal is to cultivate a broader and more balanced debate.
Your point about the DeSoto is well taken. The Nash 600 did as well (go here for a sociologically fascinating marketing photo).
One interesting thing about Kaiser is that it tended to be a leader regarding colors and fabrics. It’s too bad they tipped over so quickly.
I wonder whether trying to introduce a 2-door version of the existing body for ’49 would be a better idea than spending money on the quirky hardtop & convertible, or even the proto-hatchback – soon to be eclipsed by modern all-steel station wagons ?
Probably not; an el-cheapo 2-dr sedan or “club coupe” mostly would have just cannibalized the sales of base 4-door models, and a fancy 2-dr hardtop would have required a lot of completely new stampings and parts such as window mechanisms, which seems overambitious for Kaiser.
I owned a Vagabond hatchback sedan many years ago, at a time where they were only a few hundred Dollars for a running & driving car. The first time I had to remove the spare tire, I wondered why they didn’t make it accessible by opening the left rear door. I finally figured out it was because the bottom half of the door’s internal sheet metal had been removed to make room for the tire. That meant the remaining outer door skin had to be welded shut and the door window fixed closed. The tire was simply too wide and tall, and took up most of the area where the door’s framework would have been.
Only a few years later did Detroit figure out how to make room for a full size spare tire in a wagon, and that solution involved lengthening the rear quarter panels. This allowed the fuel tank to hide in one rear quarter, and the spare tire in the other. Plus, this allowed underfloor storage in the 6 passenger wagons, or a footwell for 9 passenger seating. [Except for the ’57 & ’58 Studebaker and Packard wagons with the 3rd row seating option. Those cars were not equipped with a spare tire. Instead they had special Goodyear “Captive Air” run flat tires.]
The original K-F solution to the spare tire location required far less change than relocating the fuel tank to make room under the floor for the spare. To accomplish that meant the only room for the fuel tank would have been forward of the rear axle, on either side of the drive shaft. The rear fenders were simply too small to put the fuel tank in just one rear fender. To equal the typical size of a fuel tank would have required a tank in each of the rear fenders. It wasn’t until the advent of compact hatchbacks with smaller wheels & tires and/or space-saver tires, that space started becoming available to store the smaller spare tires.
Bill, do you know where the spare tire was located on the regular 1947-50 Kaiser sedans, e.g., were they laid flat or propped up at an angle? I would think they could have gotten away using the same layout on the utility sedan if they gave the spare a covering. The arrangement wouldn’t have been as versatile as a wagon, but so what? What made the utility sedan uniquely valuable was that it was a compromise between a sedan and a wagon.
The redesigned 1951 Kaisers had the spare tire moved underneath the trunk’s cargo floor. I just added an image to the story that shows how that worked. I haven’t yet found information on how Kaiser dealt with the gas tank.
Their spare was stored vertically — as shown here:
https://photos.classiccars.com/cc-temp/listing/151/6563/27715414-1949-kaiser-virginian-std.jpg
https://classiccars.com/listings/view/1516563/1949-kaiser-virginian-for-sale-in-davenport-iowa-52801
Now Kaiser did make a coupe (and a 3 door version) in the 51 redesign. They apparently also did hardtop and convertible prototypes. This is something they could do. If they made a hatchback, they could have made a wagon. There is also a certain public perception at the time. There were several highly publicized auto startups at the time. Most were like Tucker, working on a shoeshine and a smile. However Kaiser was a huge conglomerate, involved in construction, shipbuilding, etc. The public assumed Kaiser had enormous resources. and they had the automotive expertise of Graham. So, Kaiser comes out with two conventional overpriced underpowered sedans. The 4 door hardtop had some potential, but the convertible looked like FDR should be riding in the back. BTW this is the first I heard of the Captive AIr tires. Well over 60 years later, we still can’t get rid of spares. Thirteen years and over 200,000 miles with no flats or punctures. Yet we still have spares.
The problem is, purchasing stamping dies for a 2-door version of the completely new ’51 body along with the rest of the stamping equipment required for its manufacture is not nearly the same thing as purchasing individual dies for adding additional body styles to an already existing body – for multiple reasons.
Most importantly – with Kaiser’s relatively low output, by ’49 there was probably just not enough time to recoup the cost of the additional dies destined to be scrapped in just a year or two – and I doubt that a 2-door would have boosted sales substantially enough to make such loss of investment worthwhile.
Also, converting a 4-door body to a 2-door configuration can be pretty challenging if the original body has not been originally designed with that in mind – probably downright impossible without excessive expenditure of money and replacing a lot of expensive equipment in some cases. The 4-door hardtop somehow seems to be less challenging from the manufacturing point of view – but my assessment may be off.
Same goes for the wagon, obviously. The hatchback should have been a relatively inexpensive project because it mostly re-used the sedan’s roof stamping (with some modifications – but the basic shape was the same) and many other stamped metal parts; not the case with the wagon, unfortunately – at least if we are considering an all-steel body and not a “woodie”, which has its own set of problems. IMO, the very fact that they went for the hatchback may be a telltale sign that Kaiser just didn’t have the resources to create a “proper” station wagon. Although I admit that the idea of such a “transitional” body type did have some marketing value as well.
I have at least one flat tyre a year. Give me a spare anytime!
The real lesson of the Kaiser-Frazer saga is that Henry J. Kaiser did not ask the right questions of his “partner”, Joseph Frazer. Launching the 1946 cars was the first step, but the encore needed was more body styles by 1948 model year with hopefully a greater engine variety at least in terms of power. The 1948 Hudson “Step-Down” could not have been a secret in the fall of 1947. Every U.S. auto manufacturer was straining to sell new cars, but rolling out innovations slowly but surely. I don’t know what Joe Frazer told Henry J., but I have to believe that he begged Kaiser to raise more capital to invest on additional tooling and additional models. Yes, interior options were wonderful, but by 1949, K-F cars were now “old”, underpowered and expensive. Those who were there say Kaiser was stubborn and difficult, and believed in his own genius; yet he seemingly did not understand that starting an automobile company required developing the cars in significant ways, which is expensive. Kaiser should have planned on losing money for several years because of a crowded mid-price marketplace: Pontiac, Dodge, De Soto, Oldsmobile, Nash, Buick, Chrysler, Hudson, Studebaker, Mercury and the lowest price Lincoln model. There was one other factor: Local new car dealers. Frazer might have rounded up former Graham-Paige and Hupp dealers for 1946, but building a nationwide network on the basis of two four-door sedans is a thin pancake, in my opinion.
I went down a Pinterest rabbit hole and stumbled across a picture of a first generation KF prototype with a trunk that opened to the side. I don’t see an advantage, but it would seem to make a nice low cost option. James Duvall, you are correct sir. After the post war seller’s market was over, the medium/premium price market became one long game of musical chairs.
I am enjoying this discussion. Thanks Steve and participants!