Kaiser Motors

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Emperor Virginian DeLuxe (1949)
Emperor Manhattan (1953)

Kaiser Motors was an American automobile manufacturer based in Willow Run , Michigan , United States. Kaiser Motors was part of the Kaiser Industries group and existed from 1946 to 1963. The manufacturer was also known as Kaiser Frazer from 1946 to 1951 and as Kaiser Jeep Corporation from 1963 to 1970 .

history

On August 9, 1945, Henry John Kaiser , civil engineering and industrialist, and Joseph W. Frazer , director of the automobile manufacturer Graham-Paige in Nevada, founded the Kaiser-Frazer Corporation . The following year, automobile production began at a Kaiser Industries plant in the western United States. First, prototypes of a car model with front-wheel drive were created. However, there was no series production. Later all activities were relocated to Willow Run near Detroit. In 1946 the Kaiser K 100 Special and Kaiser K 101 Custom models were launched , flat, large, 4-door sedans with 6-cylinder engines and rear-wheel drive. Frazer markets its almost identical model in cooperation with his employer as Frazer-Graham-Paige (approx. 6400 vehicles) and also simply as Frazer Sedan (30,000 vehicles). The Frazers were a bit more expensive and better equipped than the Kaiser models. In the years 1947 and 1948, over 200,000 vehicles of the Kaiser and Frazer brands were produced.

In the years that followed, variants of the Kaiser K 100 / K 101 emerged as a 5-door station wagon with a tailgate, as a 4-door convertible and as a 2-door sedan. In 1949 Joseph Frazer left the company. His vehicles - more and more luxurious versions of the identical Kaiser cars - were built by Kaiser until 1951 and then discontinued.

Allstate A-230 (1952)

In 1952 Kaiser launched a compact car, a 2-door sedan, which he offered as Henry J (his first name) and via the mail order company Sears-Roebuck as Allstate .

In 1953 Kaiser Industries' financial problems worsened. The "Big Three" (GM, Ford and Chrysler) had a multiple of the development funds available and also tried to force independent automobile manufacturers, such as Kaiser, out of the market with price dumping . In order to make the customer a special offer - which the "Big Three" hadn't been able to offer until then - Kaiser bought the also ailing automobile manufacturer Willys-Overland in Toledo , Ohio , which not only manufactured small cars but also the Jeep off-road vehicle . The new parent company was called Kaiser-Willys and, in addition to Kaiser Motors, also included the renamed Willys Motor Company .

Emperor Darrin (1954)

In 1954, with the help of the designer Howard “Dutch” Darrin, a 2-door convertible was created, the special feature of which was a small, fan-shaped radiator grille. The Emperor Darrin was only on offer for one year; 435 copies were sold. The car was later available from Howard Darrin - also with a V8 engine.

In 1955 Kaiser-Willys decided to stop manufacturing cars. The rights for the passenger car models and around 1000 cars still manufactured in 1955 were sold to the newly founded Industrias Kaiser Argentina (IKA) in Argentina , where the Kaiser Manhattan continued to be produced as Kaiser Carabela until 1961 ; 10,282 copies were made there. Kaiser-Willys concentrated on the manufacture of the jeeps.

In 1963 the company in Toledo was renamed Kaiser Jeep Corporation and in 1970 it was taken over by American Motors Corporation .

Models

Emperor

Type Construction period Cylinder / valve control Displacement power number of pieces
Special 1947-1950 6 row / sv 3706 cm³ 100 bhp (74 kW) 210.325
Custom / DeLuxe 1947-1950 6 row / sv 3706 cm³ 112 bhp (82 kW) 49,966
Special / DeLuxe 1951 6 row / sv 3706 cm³ 115 bhp (85 kW) 145.031
Virginian Special / DeLuxe / Manhattan 1952 6 row / sv 3706 cm³ 115 bhp (85 kW) 32,131
Manhattan / Dragon / Carolina 1953-1955 6 row / sv 3706 cm³ 118 bhp (87 kW) approx. 33,500
Supercharged Manhattan 1954-1955 6 row / sv 3706 cm³ 140 bhp (103 kW) approx. 4,325
Darrin 1954 6 row / ioe 2639 cc 90 bhp (66 kW) 435

Frazer

Type Construction period Cylinder / valve control Displacement power number of pieces
Standard / Manhattan 1947-1948 6 row / sv 3706 cm³ 100 bhp (74 kW) 116,846
Standard / Manhattan 1949-1950 6 row / sv 3706 cm³ 112 bhp (82 kW) approx. 24,700
Standard / Manhattan 1951 6 row / sv 3706 cm³ 115 bhp (85 kW) approx. 10,200

Henry J ( Allstate until 1953)

Type Construction period Cylinder / valve control Displacement power number of pieces
Four 1951-1954 4 row / sv 2199 cc 68 bhp (50 kW) 59,233 + 425 Allstate
Six 1951-1954 6 row / sv 2639 cc 80 bhp (59 kW) 64,797 + 372 Allstate

Web links

Commons : Kaiser vehicles  - collection of images, videos and audio files

swell

  • Martinez, Alberto and Nory; Jean-Loup: From Cadillac to Studebaker - The American dream cars of the fifties , 1st edition, Motorbuch-Verlag, Stuttgart (1982), ISBN 3-87943-885-4 .
  • Sabatès, Fabien: American Dream Cars 1940–50 - Hollywood Cars, Lechner-Verlag Munich (1991), ISBN 3-85049-074-2 .
  • Gunnell, John (editor): Standard Catalog of American Cars 1946-1975 , 4th Edition, Krause Publications Inc., Iola (Wisconsin) (2002), ISBN 0-87349-461-X .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://www.cocheargentino.com.ar/k/kaiser.htm ( Memento from April 10, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
  2. ↑ All quantities according to: Gunnell, Standard Catalog of American Cars 1946–2002, pp. 462ff., 484–491, 798f., 838ff.