Boy, we sure have a lot of "experts" talking about this. Let me chime back in 1 more time
I refer readers of this to KFOCI HANDBOOK. There is a section in it about the Long Beach CA assembly plant where cars were put together (assembled, built, whatever you want to call it) from body shells, assemblies and certain items out of Willow Run as well as component parts procured from West Coast suppliers. The item also identifies what months the plant operated as it sat idle for over 3 years before the first assembled cars came out of it in September 1949. It was closed October-December 1949 and February-March 1950. This section will also identify the simple ways that a Long Beach CA assembled K-F product (Kaisers and 1951 Frazers only, no HJ's) can be identified compared to cars built at Willow Run, finished at Jackson MI or assembled at Portland Oregon's assembly plant.
The Handbook is a CD and you get it as a perk for being a member of KFOCI with your new member information. The current release version (Version 5.0) has around 1,000 pages of information on cars, company, and all kinds of other K-F or Willys related materials. The item is not available for sale; also it should not be copied.
The Long Beach facility was for a time also the home of the Southern California Division of Kaiser-Frazer Corporation. This unit of K-F was one of several west coast based Kaiser interests that Henry J. Kaiser's son, Henry J. Kaiser Jr. ran.
When K-F vacated the Long Beach facility, it ended up back in the plane business. My contact at Boeing is not sure, but the building itself was either torn down for the Seal Point Industrial Park or is among the buildings Boeing still uses (some of the old Douglas buildings were acquired by Boeing & they build aircraft there, at least until September 2015). One of the few pictures of the building that survived is in the Handbook item.
Earl Muntz may have turned out 1 of the 3 trucks credited to his Los Angeles operation. The one I posted pictures of earlier is identified by HJK Jr. in his 1948 memo as produced by a body shop for the original K-F dealer in Long Beach. A number of K-F dealers & distributors made pick-ups out of 4-door sedans (or later on, Travelers) using various degrees of complexity (one of the Milwaukee dealers just cut up the sedan body, locked the back doors and dropped a prewar Dodge pick-up bed on the chassis).
