A few things about the 1946 Darrin
1. It had NOTHING to do with Kaiser-Frazer as far as production went. Howard Darrin licensed companies the right to use his designs; he retained the rights to use the design for his own purposes as well. Darrin did not like how G-P and K-F engineers were modifying his design so he decided to try and build the car as he wanted it to be. He made the prototype at the shop in Santa Monica and negotiated a deal for Hayes Manufacturing in Michigan to build it, IF he could raise the money needed to get production going. The car would have a steel body rather than fiberglas, with Hayes stamping the panels to fit on the cage frame with a stressed steel floor pan.
2. The manufacturing process planned for the car was written up in a 1946 issue of AUTOMOTIVE INDUSTRIES magazine and is interesting to read. One of the features of the car was to make a one-piece front cowl assembly that tilted like an old White truck tilt cab. That allowed for easy access to engine and all other front end components.
3. Engine was originally supposed to be the same 100 bhp Continental L-head 6 that would be used on the Kaiser and Frazer cars, coupled to a B-W 3-speed with overdrive.
4. Darrin went into this in large measure because he thought that he could count on financing from Lehrman Brothers, who wanted to control distribution and sales of the vehicle through businesses the bank had in its portfolio ( back in the 1920's Lehrman owned Dodge Brothers after the brothers died & were the ones who sold Dodge to Walter P. Chrysler who used it to expand his young Chrysler Corporation). After more research, the bank decided there were too many risks and dropped their plans to invest. Howard Darrin tried to get cars built on a more or less custom basis for a short time after that (late 1946) with no takers.
5. The car was destroyed during a flood that went through the area where Darrin's home was located (same flood where the prototype "blue car"--a compact alternative to the HJ, using some 1951 Kaiser body panels was destroyed).
6. As a young lad, I remember going to the Werner Manufacturing Corporation on Milwaukee's north side (the same people who made the old quarter-midget racing cars) and saw an almost identical vehicle to the 1946 Darrin. Mr. Werner had people making the car for himself as a custom job, and it did have a fiberglas body; it was the first raw fiberglas body I had ever seen (looked a yucky kind of yellow-brown). Dad new the Werner family in part because we used to own the first quarter-midget that the company ever built (It was my race car, painted #27 on the back) and in time dad swaped it for one of the later larger cars (looks like an Indy Offenhauser racer) that an adult could fit in (Flo Bortz, wife of commercial artist Eddie Bortz, creator of the old Blatz Beer characters with keg, bottle and can bodies is the lady seen behind the wheel of the car in the old ads).
