Early 1946 Kaisers

[Gordie]

We all know that the front wheel drive Kaiser looked like the Frazer somewhat but practically everything was different including the body.  I recently found some early photos of Mr and Mrs. Henry Kaiser arriving at the Michigan Central railroad station and were met there with a new Kaiser sedan.  This is not the front wheel drive car but a new production car with the rear wheel drive but it has the ribbed bumpers as used on the earliest prototypes.  The date of the photo is May 31, 1946.  Everything else looks ok but the car has an antenna and K-F radios were not available until about a year later...This may be one of the first production Kaiser cars but I wonder how many were made with the ribbed bumpers.  It is kind of like the old situation of the earliest Frazer's having painted grills although they were not sold that way.  I doubt if the Kaisers were ever delivered with these ribbed bumpers.  If you want to see what the ribbed bumpers looked like just look at the early K-F magazine ads.  All of the front wheel drive Kaisers had bumpers that looked almost like Frazer bumpers.  Interesting!  Any opinions?

[kaiserfrazerlibrary]

A picture with a date of 5/31/46 suggests that the car (of course) was built before then.  That would put this car among the first pilot production K-100 Kaiser Specials.  Photos of production car K100-001001 do exist and show it with the standard bumper, however they were taken in 1948 and a swap may have taken place before the photo shoot. 

[Gordie]

Thanks Jack, this may be Kaiser number one as Henry seems very happy and is admiring the car and even has the door open in one picture and is looking inside as though he is seeing the car for the first time.  I compared the bumpers with the front wheel drive car and the bumper guards at least seem identical and the general style of the bumpers are the same.  There must be more photos of an early Kaiser with the ribbed bumpers although there are not too many photos of Frazer's with painted grills.  Several of the early painted ads show the Kaiser's and Frazer's with the same Frazer bumpers and the first ad showing the Kaiser with the correct bumpers appeared in September 1946, about the same time that the painted grills disappeared on the Frazer ads.