Cartoon from 1943

[324darrin]

My wife came home from her favorite second hand store just before all the covid craziness took over with a “Best Cartoons of 1943” book. I thought you all might enjoy this one. Also need to lament the cancellation of not only our spring meet here in the PNW but especially the national event. They were both to be held just 15 miles from our home and the Darrin was to make its debut after 47 years of storage and 2 years of resuscitation. OK, just had to whine. LOL

[kfnut]

I like it . If you don't get the joke , you should read the book " Freedom's Forge " .

[kaiserfrazerlibrary]

Too bad the book didn't have the cartoon about Kaiser's airplane production during World War II.

During the war, Kaiser had shipyard operations in various cities on the West Coast.  He introduced pre-fabrication and mass production techniques to the ship building industry to speed up production of the Liberty Ship cargo freighters so it took only days rather than weeks from laying the keel to sending it down the ways for final refit compared to the weeks it took using conventional boatbuilding procedures.  As a result, even during the peak successes of the U-Boats America turned out more freighters that the Germans could sink.    The speed record for a Liberty Ship was less than 8 days from keel laying to launch.

Kaiser was also asked to step in at Brewster Aviation and take over production of second-line fighters for training and patrol work away from the front lines (the Brewster Buffalo was no match for the Zero or the front line German fighters).  He got things to the point where the plant received the "E for Excellence" award for on-time deliveries and product quality.  However, Henry J. Kaiser didn't enjoy the situation at Brewster and when the award was received he backed away from operations.

[konrad]

During the war, Kaiser had shipyard operations in various cities on the West Coast.  He introduced pre-fabrication and mass production techniques to the ship building industry to speed up production of the Liberty Ship cargo freighters so it took only days rather than weeks from laying the keel to sending it down the ways for final refit compared to the weeks it took using conventional boatbuilding procedures.  As a result, even during the peak successes of the U-Boats America turned out more freighters that the Germans could sink.    The speed record for a Liberty Ship was less than 8 days from keel laying to launch.

I think Henry took a bit too much of that can do, build, build build with him to Kaiser Frazer, and should have listened more to Joe on production numbers...the company might have been more profitable in the long run.  That said, I still don't think they would have lasted all that much longer given the Ford/GM price wars that killed so many of the independents...but who knows...given the vision of the Darrin, what might have survived into the 60's?  The Studebaker Avanti makes me wonder what Kaiser could have come up with if they'd been a bit more conservative on production, more fiscally solvent, able to hold the line a bit longer...