70 years ago

[JFerriss]

It does not seem like 70 years ago and in fact it seems like only yesterday that KF was just hitting the ground in 1946 and so was I.   I came across some old Popular Science and other magazines recently and in the October 1946 issue was this little piece on one of "Dutch" Darrin's new projects. It is clear that he was carrying over some of his Frazer themes into this prototype. I thought you would find this article interesting.

[joefrazer]

Another picture of the car described in the Popular Science article...

[kaiserfrazerlibrary]

As I noted in BUILT TO BETTER THE BEST, Howard Darrin licensed Kaiser-Frazer and Graham-Paige to use his design that became the 1947 Kaiser and Frazer cars.  He retained the right to build the design in any way he wanted to.  That led to the Darrin Motor Car Company and the plans to build the car as a convertible.  The idea failed due to lack of money.

[JFerriss]

yes, I remember that from your excellent book. Too bad it did not get funded. It would have been great if at least one or two of these was still around from an historical point of view. For the time it was quite a novel idea in construction and design.

I also wish that Darrin's original design for the Frazer in the Darrin model mock-up would have come forward more closely. It really had that Darrin touch of class especially in the trim window/door frames. It looked more luxurious.

[Gordie]

There was only one of these built and Darrin lost it when the rains washed out the roads to his Benedict Canyon home in Los Angeles and the car was washed away.  It was actually made after the Kaisers and Frazers were designed and you can certainly see the resemblance to the Frazer car.   This car was announced in late 1946 and there were articles about it published in trade magazines of that era.  It was to have been powered by the same Continental 226 engine as were used in the production Kaisers and Frazers.