I received the following very interesting information from Jack and wanted to post it here for everyone, as it is very interesting and informative:
"Let me start by pulling some numbers from Page 24 of the Kaiser-Frazer Corporation Operating Report for the 3 months ending March 31, 1949:
1. As of March 31, 1949, the company built 11 convertibles; 1 was prior to 12/31/49. Two more were built in January 1949, 6 were built in February 1949 and 2 more were built in March.
2. As of December 31, 1948, the company produced 31,179 Kaiser Deluxe automobiles, all models; in January 1949 the company built 4,619 more Deluxe types including convertibles.
3. Page 23 of the same operating report indicates that only 6 of the 11 convertibles built had been cleared as OK by final inspection as of March 31, 1949; the difference in numbers suggests that the 5 not cleared were produced in February 1949. Of the remaining 6, only 1 was cleared in January 1949, but the report shows 2 were OK'd during calendar year 1948. There is no explanation in the report for the discrepancy between counts on this page and page 24. My assumption is that one of the two January convertibles was built and run through Final Inspection at the beginning of the month. This is plausible according to serial numbers (it would have been the 374th car built in January which indicates production during the first week of the month).
Kaiser Deluxe serial numbers started out K492-001001. That makes the convertible the 31,553rd 1949 Kaiser Deluxe built. Based on the factory figures, it would have been built in January 1949 and be one of 2 convertibles built that month. Now for the kicker. The following is a caption for a picture published in the February 11, 1949 issue of KAISER-FRAZER DEALER NEWS:
Thwarting Souvenir Hunters was the job handed Ezra Kennedy, body shop mechanic at Washington Motors [the K-F distributor in Washington DC at that time-JM]. To make sure that no one made off with the special Inaugural license plates used on the K-F convertibles, he welded them to the brackets. The car in this picture is Indian Ceramic with black leather trim. Mechanics worked all night prior to the parade to put cars in top shape.
The caption for another picture indicates that Kaiser-Frazer supplied 1 Red, 1White and 1 Blue convertible for use in the Truman Inaugural. Two of the cars were Kaisers, 1 was a Frazer (actual colors were Indian Ceramic, Polar Gray and Horizon Blue, with the Frazer painted Polar Gray). Based on a date of January 20, 1949 and time required to release the car as OK at the factory, transport to Washington, etc, it seems likely that the convertible you have in the museum could have been the same car used in the parade, as there was only 1 convertible built prior to January 1, 1949 and only 2 cars were built in the entire month of January. Because there is nothing that I have that identifies specific serial numbers I cannot be 100% positive, but it sure looks like it.
You might want to contact Jim Betts to see if he has an ORIGINAL of the DEALER NEWS issue noted above; mine is a place-holder photocopy. You could scan the article and the pictures from the issue and use it for part of the display if you want to.
Jack Mueller"
