KAISER

Kaiser-Frazer was set up in August 1945 as a joint venture between the Henry J. Kaiser Company and Graham-Paige Motors, whose chief executive was Joseph W. Frazer. The first Kaiser and Frazer cars came out of Willow Run in less than a year, over 11,000 were shipped by the end of 1946, and the 300,000th car left the line in the summer of 1948.

In 1950 the company began the compact Henry J and ended the Frazer. At the 1953 New York Auto Show it announced the fibreglass-bodied sports car by Howard “Dutch” Darrin, sold from January 1954 as the Kaiser Darrin. In 1953 the firm became Kaiser Motors and bought assets of Willys-Overland, forming Willys Motors; it became Kaiser Jeep Corporation in 1963, and South American plants kept building cars into the 1960s.