The 51 restyle made several big jumps in styling...way ahead of the competition.
Hi Carpenter, by 51 restyle I meant the last year freshening of the Frazer, based on the original slab side model from 1947, NOT the all new 51 Kaiser styling. The 51 Kaiser styling was phenomenal - yes.
It's a big tent. There are quite a few folks on here that admire the freshening done on the 51 Frazer BUT for me, the concaveness of the front grille/fender treatment is not an improvement.
They accomplished making it different from the 47-50's. I have since come to appreciate the 47-48 Frazers but no one can say their grilles are styling leaders. It is well known that the 49-50 Frazer eggcrate grille was a copy of the 1948 Cadillac grille.
It made a huge difference in the appearance of the Frazer, as the 49-50 Kaiser grille did. I owned a 1949 Virginian and I can't say the Kaiser grille is "less" of a grille than the Frazer, both were HUGE improvements over the compromise grilles of 47-48. Those grilles were not announcements of the car, they were too subtle, almost compromises made for tooling. Like I said, I have come to appreciate the 47-48 Frazer grilles, but they lack the character and style of the 49-50's.
