HOW MANY '51 HENRY J'S THAT WERE ALOHA GREEN ARE LEFT

[51HJ]

I'm trying to get an idea of just how many Aloha green Henry J's are left. I've located only 8 and three are parts cars  Todd Spreck, Mike Hazel, the one that sold at auction in Winslow, Ar., Another one showed up in Ar., And mine.

[blackcat429cj]

An even better question is how may Aloha green HJs are still painted Aloha green.

[Fid]

I know of 4. The one Mitch used to own, the one Mike Hazel restored, Don Dettore's in IL and Steve H's.

[blackcat429cj]

BTW - My former car is the one currenly owned by Todd Spreck,  There was another one in western minnesota, it was a little old lady car - pretty much identical to the one I had except the serial number was much higher - last I saw it would have been in the late 80's. 

Todds car has been rescued twice! - I found it in a junk yard and, after I traded it - it fell into the hands of a guy that was going to street rod it.  Thats who Todd bought it from.

[Fid]

Mitch, Todd called me last week to tell me he just bought this car

http://www.henryjcars.com/purpleflame/purpleflame.html

He's into originals and customs. The guy who had this one used to show up at North Saint Paul with it all the time but he decided to sell so Todd grabbed it up.

[blackcat429cj]

That looks like a nice car - Doesn't that make 4 HJs for Todd?

[51HJ]

I knew about that car being for sale and counted it, there was also a Aloha Green one in Sioux Falls, SD. last summer. No seats, no windshield, rod project. And the 2 green cars I had for parts, one went to Tenn. , the other went to Ky. to be roded.
So that's a total of 4 parts cars, and the other 4  that we know about. The registry lists about 25 aloha green cars, 4 cylinders and 6 cylinders, but don't know their condition. The total cars left is up to 31 in all conditions

[swade41]

I might have one, my door frames are that color under the black paint. Now of course these doors might be off of a different car too.

[HJ-ETEX]

You know that when the product was launched, most HJs were 6 cylinders and painted Aloha Green. I recall seeing a dealer letter about the intro where it referred to including a (small) can of paint for touch up purposes.
I have a HJ 6 that that I bought from a junk yard some 20 years ago - just a body shell - but the body number is low and in the parts hidden from the Sun, the Aloha Green color can be seen.
In contrast, the early HJ 4 cylinder cars I have seen seem to be Gray in color.

KF had a good thing going with their paint selections on the big cars, but it appears they stumbled on the HJ intro. They should have had more colors and more vivid/vibrant colors. Paint colors are relatively cheap.

[alohagreen]

and i have one


 

[kaiserfrazerlibrary]

According to an article in KAISER-FRAZER DEALER NEWS, Aloha Green was supposed to be "wierd" for a reason.  Carlton Spencer created the color for early production HJ's so the cars would stand out.  Spencer figured that people would notice the distinctive color & people would think that there were more of the cars on the road than actual counts.  Production of HJ's was not as high as expected in July-September 1950 because Willys-Overland was not able to supply 4 cylinder engines to K-F until just after Labor Day (government orders for spare engines and parts took priority over civilian use of the flathead 4).

[retired wrench]

  The colors used on the Js backfired on them. They had a product vastly different than the norm which makes a hard sell then they threw the wierd colors at them and it was just too much for the public to accept. I can still remember the comments I heard back in those days. On the flip side, everyone I ever talked to that owned one loved it. I would buy a new one today if they still made them. Oh well.

[alohagreen]

mine is a driver  , only NEEDing a few improvements,
like not broken tail lights .... and a little this and that...
thumbs up and questions EVERY-WHERE it goes.


 

[Gray Ghost]

My originally blue '51 was hot rodded and painted yellow about 35 yrs ago. Behind both headlight buckets I found Aloha green. When I started to strip the yellow I found the passenger side had just the Aloha green underneath, but the drivers side had been painted dark green at some time, then yellow. Kind of funny that two different Aloha green cars gave up there fenders to repair my car.

Gary

[BobsJ]

My early Aloha green and a dark green lower half still has the paint on it. 6 cyl car with 25816 miles. I've had this car since the 80's. paid $1400 for it then. Have a gray, and blue parts cars