Is this true?

[51Deluxe]

Today I was reading a thread under a Hemmings "find of the day" post about a Dragon. Interesting reading what old car lovers in general think about Kaisers. One of them posted the following:

"Always loved the 54 Kaiser grille/head light treatment that the company swiped from the 1953 Buick Wildcat show car.

The design survived the test of time, lasting until 1962 in Argentina as the Carabela, and almost reintroduced in the US in 1963 with a Lincoln style roof (similar to Brook Stevens’ revamped Studebaker Hawk GT.) Of course, Kaiser Jeep only had so much development funds and management chose the all new Wagoneer in lieu of the warmed over Kaiser Carabela/Manhatten, and the rest of the story is history"



Had never heard of efforts to modify and re introduce the car to the US in the 60's,  any truth to it?

[DTort96646]

Comments and opinions are like belly buttons, in other words every body has one. Oh, and by the way, an Argentine auto instructor told me that in Argentina when he was growing up, Kaisers were referred to as belly buttons because every body had one.

[joefrazer]

There were several design work ups done to freshen up the 1954 bbody style. Nothing serious happened with them , partly due to the fact that the dies were well worn by then.

[kaiserfrazerlibrary]

The actual "inspiration" for the headlight set up in the 1954-55 Kaisers (and the IKA Carabella) was the XP-300, not the Wildcat. Because of import duties and other transportation issues, there were never any plans to export cars from either IKA or Willis-Overland du Brasil (who got 4-door Aero Willys tooling and used it until that wore out) back to the states.  Like Ward Canady, Henry & Edgar Kaiser decided not to spend the millions of dollars needed every so often to play the styling game.  The Wagoneer was as close as they got & like the original Jeep Station Wagon of 1946, it shared a lot with the pick-up version, first offered as the Gladiator.

[Roadmaster49]

Correct.  The 54 KF bears a striking resemblance to the XP-300 Buick (GM) show car and I thought GM considered a lawsuit against KF.    A photo would help.