First KF Dealership

[joefrazer]

I'm not certain it's absolutely true, but this article talks about the first KF dealership. An interesting read.

There are also links to other related articles.

https://kaiserpermanentehistory.org/latest/kaiser-motors-in-oakland-we-sell-to-make-friends/

[kaiserfrazerlibrary]

The ad states "Henryt J Kaiser's first dealership".  That part is true as it was the location of the FIRST Henry J. Kaiser Motors.   The franchise was previously in place as a Graham-Paige Motors Corporation factory-owned dealership (as was the NYC location until Earl Muntz did his deal with Joe Frazer and took it over).   

Distributors had first pick of areas in their sales territory for their own retail stores.  The Henry J. Kaiser Company actually had at least 3 brick & mortar new car dealerships in the San Francisco Bay area including a location inb Palo Alto and Richmond.  They also had 2 field showroomns (the glass display buildings) around the greatrer San Francisco area.  Some pictures relating to this are attached.

While it is not known who "officially" was the first Kaiser-Frazer dealer, it is known that #4 was A1 ROCK MOTOR SALES (not Al as in the name AL) which was signed in the fall of 1945 and was located in South Beloit IL.  The owner of the dealership wanted to open a place just across the Rock River in Wisconsin but could not find a suitable building at the time.  When he did get a place on the Wisconsinb side of the river, he moved there.  For reasons that may never be known, Kaiser-Frazer Sales Corporation decided to remove the city of Beloit WI from the distributor sales territory of DeBoer Motors in Milwaukee (they had the rest of Wisconsin's Rock County) and assign it to the Rockford IL distributor (at the time it was Rockford White Company who also sold the White truck line).  The dealership was profiled in a 1951 issue of KAISER-FRAZER DEALER NEWS which is the source for this history. 

Photos show an architect's sketch of the showroom part of the first Henry J Kaiser Motors building, another of the first drive-away from the distributorship in September 1946.  Also pictured is one of the glass showrooms and the Henry J Kaiser Motors dealership in Palo Alto.
 

[Gordie]

Mad Man Muntz could have been the first dealer.  I have a magazine ad from January 1946 which is very early for dealerships and it lists Muntz Motors at 1101 Figueroa St. in Los Angeles, the distributor, and thirty one other Los Angeles area dealers on that date.  A press photo exists that shows an early load of cars being loaded on to a box car with a large sign that says "Kaiser and Frazer automobiles from Willow Run to Muntz Car Co. Los Angeles Calif.  The first production Kaiser was not delivered to Henry Kaiser and Joe Frazer until June 5th 1946 and it had different features than the regular production Kaisers had.  The bumpers and grills were different.  Distributorships and dealers were established long before cars were available.  The dealers had washing machines and Rototillers to sell before the cars became available.

[Orphanauto]

That's very interesting. It does make me wonder who was the last dealership, and what was the last new Kaiser sold? I have known of a few dealerships that had cars a year or two old that were still new. Perhaps a 55 selling in 57/58? Just curious.

[Gordie]

Many of the Kaiser-Frazer dealers became Willys dealers after K-F stopped making cars and there were no more new K-F dealers after Willys took over in late 1953.

[kaiserfrazerlibrary]

Willys did not take over Kaiser-Frazer in 1953; it was the unit of Kaiser-Frazer Corporation (Kaiser Manufacturing Corporation) that handled the defense work.  Kaiser financial people engineered the package that allowed the unit to purchase certain assets and assume certain liabilities of Willys-Overland Motor Car Corporation in 1953.  The items acquired by Kaiser Manufacturing Corporation became Willys Motors, Incorporated.  As part of the intergration of Kaiser-Frazer and Willys Motors, sales & marketing of vehicles, parts and other items relating to sales were combined into Kaiser-Willys Sales Corporation during the summer of 1953.  Kaiser-Frazer and Willys-Overland (Jeep) dealers and distributors had to re-apply for a franchise with the new entity. 

Dealers in the K-W program had a choice of 6 different franchises, some available separately others were required to be bundled with one or more of the different programs:

UNIVERSAL JEEP - Stand alone program
WILLYS COMMERCIAL VEHICLES - was to go with UNIVERSAL JEEP program, not stand alone covers trucks & station wagons
WILLYS PASSENGER CARS - could be bundled with UNIVERSAL JEEP program, not available by itself
KAISER PASSENGER CARS - This franchise did not stand alone; it required one or both of:
                                           HENRY J PASSENGER CARS
                                           KAISER DARRIN SPORTS CAR - this might have been available to dealers having the WILLYS
                                                                                         PASSENGER CAR franchise

Many Kaiser-Frazer/Graham-Paige franchised dealers in major cities 9and some in smaller cities) advertised that they were factory authorized dealers for the Kaiser and Frazer cars in the first 6 months of 1946.  At least one other dealer was officially franchised in 1945.  That operation was Braden Motors, retail K-F/G-P dealer in Evansville Indiana as well as distributor for the Evansville IN sales territory (in cluded parts of Illinois, Kentucky & Indiana). 
 

[kaiserfrazerlibrary]

Also, while the Muntz Motor Company distributorship in Los Angeles was the first outlet to get production cars for display and sale, Earl Muntz has never been identified in factory documents as the first Kaiser-Frazer dealer or distributor signed.  Normally, distributors got cars first, then dealers within the sales territory.  It would take until sometime in October before each outlet got either their first Kaiser or their first Frazer. 

There were some K-F franchised dealers who operated under the Kaiser-Frazer banner for less than 8 weeks.  One of these was Probst Motor Company in Jefferson WI west of Milwaukee on U.S. Highway 18.  Mr. Probst actually wanted a Nash dealer franchise but could not get it at first.  Shortly after the papers were signed Nash came through and he dropped K-F.