Kaiser emblem

[fathersondream]

What is the meaning of the buffalo on the kaisers?

[HJ-ETEX]

Joe Frazer claimed to have a family crest which they used on the ornaments on Frazer cars.
Henry Kaiser, despite the last name, did not claim to be related to gentry or royalty and did not claim a 'coat of arms' like Joe.
Thus, when it came time for the car ornaments, he adopted the buffalo as representing the determined approach he took to his business activities nd his common heritage.

[Cortes121]

I always heard it was penned by designers for Kaiser, partly to represent the wild west, partly to represent the intended front wheel drive capability to plow through snow, and heard Frazer quipped it was a perfect fit for the stubborn Kaiser

of course, I have no proof to back these claims.

[HJ-ETEX]

I was trying to avoid mentioning "hardheadedness."

[Cortes121]

Haha sorry..

[kaiserfrazerlibrary]

The crest was worked up by Kaiser-Frazer marketing people based on the following:

1.  The company needed some kind of emblem to go along with what the Frazer had but as far as could be determined, the Kaiser family had no actual heraldy (coat of arms)

2.  The K stood for Kaiser and the buffalo was a symbol of the ruggest west where Kaiser operations were based at (other than Fleetwings in PA and K-F in Michigan).

3.  Retrospectively, the "determination" of the Kaiser family to make a go of Kaiser-Frazer brought about the sarcasm on being hard-headed,  stubborn, powerful but stupid, etc.

the Buffalo motif was also used on some of the Kaiser 226 engine tags around 1951.