Increase in Henry J's for sale on ebay

[Corsairdeluxe]

Has anyone else noticed the marked increase in Henry J's for sale on ebay,including some nice, reasonably unmolested ones. Over the last few months there have been at least 3 or 4 I would not mind having. The nice ones have come with high price tags and usually do not sell, but it is good to see they are still out there and the would be sellers are keeping the price up!

My favorite Henry J shot...well I have another one but I would be banned from the forum for life if I posted it!

[Fid]

I've noticed that too Jim but I don't recall the last time I saw a good one. They're few and far between.  Actually, this one isn't bad:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/?cmd=ViewItem&_trksid=p3984.m1423.l2649&item=261062925935&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWAX%3AIT

In the ad the seller states that he and his grandfather restored it in the early 70s and that his grandfather was a KF dealer. I see the "Eden Motors" badge on the back and I wonder if his grandfather was Clayton Eden, a KF dealer in Iowa City, IA who used to attend a lot of HOA and Midwest Division meets in a pristine '54 Henry  J which he had saved from back when he was a dealer. I know he and his son had restored some cars as well.
Not to be too much of a picky SOB but the car is '52 with a '51 hood ornament, '53 rear bumper, and non-KF lights in the old tail light holes and speakers mounted in the rear window so it is not an "unmolested" example but not a bad example either.

[Corsairdeluxe]

I may have used the wrong word in"good". I thought the California ALLSTATE was a good canidate for a redo and did not have major faults. I'd would have bought it if it were not so far away.

[Fid]

I forgot about that Allstate. It looked good and if I'm not mistaken, Gordie got it.

[Roadmaster49]

Markets for some old car lines is strange right now, stranger then in the past. It has been a casual interest of mine since the late 1980's when I started to pay attention to the speculation driven marketplace of the old car hobby, which crashed as some of us know - in the early 1990's.  Then the muscle car craze, now "few" people are restoring but as you note, some of these Henry J's are nice drivers.

I am not a Henry J fan, but am amazed at their close following on this forum and in the club. I would love to have a ride in one at a meet sometime. 

Not to get too off-topic, but why do you Henry J owners and fans like them?  I would like to know. Cute? Economical? Kitzy? Different?

The recent Henry J marketplace may be a bubble.  If you notice 2nd gen owners (sons and daughters) placing the ebay auctions and such then it's more about space and desirability, meaning the kids don't want the perceived burden of taking over Dad's ride and don't have the space in the suburban garage.

[Gordie]

As a retired fifty year used car dealer I can say that Kaiser and Frazer products were never good sellers on the used car market.  Gas was cheap and most buyers wanted V8 engines.  The Henry J's caught on with the drag race crowd as the car was small and light and in California at least Henry J's began to get scarce in the 1970's as more and more of them began to disappear off of the roads.  Now the pre-war Willys cars are popular with the racers and they too have disappeared and are very valuable and the few nice originals are few and far between.  In their day Henry J's were no more popular than Nash Ramblers or Willys Aeros or the other small cars but today they are cute and with current gas prices what they are they are affordable to drive and easy to handle and I think that that is why they have been gaining popularity in the last few years.  Even the Henry J's have been getting V8 transplants and air conditioning to make them a better choice for trips and tours and there probably aren't too many more nice ones hiding in garages and barns.  Get a good one when you see it as they will just rise in value over the years.  I like my '65 Mustang GT convertible but I can't afford to drive it on a regular basis because of the price of gas.

[Aeroman]

Gordie sums it up pretty well on the current popularity of Henry Js. I would add that the size of the car has something to do with it. People are street rodding them for daily driving of something a bit different. Same thing with Willys Aeros, Metropolitans and 2-door Rambler wagons - lots of them are strret rodded and few getting restored. A good street rod version of either of these cars is worth much more than a nice original or well restored car.

[Fid]

Roadmaster, I'm a generation or two younger than the Henry J and I often did not understand the criticism of them but I do now. No, they don't compare in ride or features to say a Kaiser or Pontiac or any other car of their time.  When I was a kid we had only 1953 Henry Js in the family and they are quite a bit different than the early '51s that those people who remember them from back in the day are familiar with. The '53 Js have larger seats, a dome light, a glovebox and most have a trunk lid so I never saw them as lacking in features the way the '51s are often (and rightly) viewed. I didn't realize how much more spartan (to use  a kind term) the earlier ones were than the '53s I was used to.  Also, we had only 6 cylinder models with overdrive so I never experienced a four cylinder which are often the ones people are familiar with.  My interest in them has always been due to the fact that they are a unique old car, not in that they were a dream car of my youth.
They're cute... or ugly depending on who you talk to but in either case they are cool and unusual.
I now see, and understand, that for many people of that era, a Henry J is viewed like a Vega or an Opel would be to my generation. With those Roadrunners, Camaros, Mustangs, Firebirds and countless other great cars of that era, who would opt for a stock Vega or Pinto? The Henry J is seen the same way by many of those from my parents generation and I didn't get that till recently.  I recently saw a stock Vega and I was very impressed and happy to see one but I don't ever dream of owning one. Perhaps my kids will though because those cars will have a different meaning to them.  Also, the Henry J has so many different features and options available and so many small/subtle changes over its short 3 year life and I find it very  interesting to analyze them.  Then to top it off, mechanically, they are very durable and dependable - Henry Js never vapor lock. They're very easy to maintain and you can still get most mechanical/engine parts for them.  I know when I show up at a rally with one of mine, it will get people's attention more so than a lot of cars will. Is it as fancy as say a 1953 Ford convertible with a flathead V8? Of course not, but it is cool.

[porsche1914]

In answer to the Henry J question, I'm 73 and the first car I had when I was 16 was a '51 Henry J,  also had a Willys Aerø later on and also a '53 Kaiser.
My dad started with a '47 Kaiser then had a new one every 2years until they moved to Argentina.
I've had many other cars including a couple of XK Jaguars, but you never forget your first car.
I picked up a '51 J a couple of years ago and had it at the Seaway meet last fall.
I had a Henry J as my first car and now I have one for the last car I will buy.
I have an '82 El Camino as my daily driver but I drive my J 3 to 4 times a week accept in the winter.
I can't speak for the rest of the J owners, but that's why I have one and love it.Also my sons and granddaughters are lined up to see who gets it when I'm gone.

[kfnut]

Like the last post , my first car was a 51 J with 6 cylinder and overdrive . It was summer time when i was 13 or 14 about 1966 . We lived in Sheveport La. and my mother had to go Alabama to care for her mother for some illness and left me and Dad without a ride . Dad had use of a company truck but he didn"t want to use it for non-work purposes so we went looking for a ride . We looked at a lot of vehicles . I remember a Stude truck i liked a lot  . Someone told Dad about a "j" in a wrecking yard for sell . They had removed it from someone"s garage and had it running . It had a small crease down the left side where they did a bad job of loading it . Dad had a new Henry J in 51 so it grabbed his attention . $75.00 and we had our first Henry J . I drove it to school and still had it when i left for the Navy . I never thought about it would be a part of my life , but it still is . The Henry J is why i belong to the club . I have had 20 something KF products but the "J" is special to me . It is all apart now and i hope to re-assemble in the near future .

[Roadmaster49]

Interesting comments.  It appears most folks own J's because of a personal experience.  Not all, but that is a theme.

[boatingbill]

I had a '52 Allstate back in the 60's when I worked in a gas station. A guy drove by with a '52 HJ and stopped in thinking my car was a HJ. I showed him the Allstate which was all stock and then he
opened the hood on his HJ. It had a '56 Olds engine with the J2 setup and a B & M Hydrostick
transmission (a beefed up Hydromatic). This fed a Ford 9" rear end. The outside looked all stock
until a person looked at those fat rear tires! He said with slicks, it would lift the front tires off the
ground if he floored it. He must have narrowed that Ford rear end to get it to fit under the HJ.
When he left the station he did floor it and it was unbelievable! Someone can by and made an
offer on the Allstate and I sold it. The station was a mile form the huge Minneapolis Sears &
Roebuck store and I wondered afterwards if they sold that Allstate originally. 

[Corsairdeluxe]

Well ...I've had 8 Henry J s and one ALLSTATE and I'm looking for another.My first one was a 53 ,4 cyl.with O.D. I put about 35,000 mlies on that one. I had a 51 ,6 with no O.D. that I put about the same number of miles on,including a 1,800 mile,3 day ,run from El Paso to eastern N.C..They are a robust little car,simple enough that an average mechanically inclined guy can do very well.Nothing comfortable about them, but I never owned a big comfortable car so I did not miss anything.Restoration of a J is hard work if you do it right and paint jobs cost the same regardless of what you spray them on. There are fewer parts involved and less demanding technology. I'm 74 years old and raring to find one here like Gordy just did in SoCal.

I'm not good at posting photos but I'll try to post some of my past cars in the next  reply

[Fid]

And speak of the devil... I took my J to a rally tonight and look what was parked just a few paces away:

It had a small block Chevy V8 in it I might add...

[Roadmaster49]

Vegas were mechanically inferior but visually they were a decent looking car.  GM was on the decline then. Pintos were ugly, poor proportions, slightly more reliable but death traps.