Update on Kaiser bus

I blogged about an ad for the Kaiser articulated bus in an earlier post. Someone asked about them so I decided to check out google. I looked for kaiser bus in google images which is a very general search. That is evident when one considers the finds. One example is the postcard image of the cafe that includes a bus and a 51 Kaiser but no kaiser bus!

But there are some good Kaiser bus images as well. Here is one example.




And check this one out...

The caption on this one is "man driving bus" and obviously the "man" is Henry J Kaiser himself.

I did do a regular web search and found this site that indicates only one bus was built and it was in service from 1946-51.

Next time take the bus!

KF judging at 5 AM at Texline rest stop...

Take a look at that great pic. Every time I look at it I am reminded of some memorable trips out West—either for camping and fishing in Yellowstone country or for more “mundane” activities. Nearly always we stopped at the Texline rest area (at the border between TX and NM) on 87 especially if we were headed out to the West rather than returning home. This pic was snapped by me early one morning as the sun was coming up at the rest stop. I can't be sure which trip it was.

One trip we were headed to Ouray for the 1985 national KF meet. I was in my 54 Late Special and the Stradt boys were in Larry's 52 Kaiser. Both cars had Chevy V8 engines and have been discussed in various articles in the Quarterly before. In fact the very first issue that I edited featured details of the V8 conversion. The 54 made its first road trip to the 1984 national KF meet in Pigeon Forge, TN. This was also the first national I ever attended.

The 54 had been found not far from Nacogdoches and the seller was motivated so I bought it. The car had been subjected to an amateur restoration and looked pretty good but in need of some attention. We got it to run well enough to get inspection so I could get the AR title transferred to TX but the engine was leaking oil badly. So, it was ready for the transplant. Fortunately Tom Stradt was willing and able to provide his mechanical skills and I mostly was the boss and beer wrangler.

The interior looked good since it had been redone but was not original materials. It suited me since I had no plans for the car other than to be a driver.

Anyway here is the scene at the rest area for our stop on the way to Ouray. We got there some time after midnight and pulled in to take a snooze. I decided the back seat of the 54 would make a nice area to stretch out. I soon found that with one door closed and the other open I could use the arm rest of the closed door as sort of a pillow. After some time I woke up and decided it was time to switch positions and put my head in the other direction. It was then that I noted a problem. Get out the judging sheet! No arm rest! Funny how you can overlook something like that until you really need it...

I never got around to finding another arm rest but that 54 provided a lot of fun over the years as many trips to KF events were made in it. Some time back I sold the car to a club member and he has been updating it.

Cattle Roundup on US 75--Saddle the Kaiser

Our 51 Kaiser had been around 100 thousand miles by the time of the event of this tale and it showed it. But it still provided a way for me and my brother to get to school or take a drive to town for the "picture show" as we called it in those days.

It must have been in 1954 when we were living on US 75 a few miles north of Conroe, Texas. We had been to town for the show and were coming home. It was dark and raining slowly. The highway was dark as well. As we headed down the hill near a cafe/beer joint it happened. Boom! We hit a cow on the butt with the right front fender and on the rebound with the right rear quarter panel. The situation was made worse by the fact the cow was black. Luckily we were not going very fast because of the conditions. At the time US 75 was one of the busiest highways in Texas as it was the main connection between Houston and Dallas. Now Interstate 45 has supplanted it.

We were able to get on home with one headlight pointing at a weird angle. My brother and I were not hurt but got a big scare. When we told my Dad what had happened he immediately wanted to go check on the cow. The reason was at that time there was an open range law that essentially made the driver of the car responsible for any harm to the damn cow! Remember this happened in Texas. Well the cow was gone and we never heard what her fate was.

The Kaiser got patched up with a used fender from a black car (not a good match for the Horizon blue color of car) which was not a lot better than the wrecked fender but at least the headlight pointed in the right direction.

Some time later I recall my Dad arranged for a salesman from the KF dealer in Houston to bring out a 54 Kaiser Manhattan for him to consider. In all likelihood I probably hounded him to consider a new car even though I probably knew he could not afford one. I guess they were like most KF dealers at the time and were going to extremes to try to sell cars. It was like a 50+ mile drive from Houston. I remember how beautiful the car was--it was a maroon shade on bottom and beige on top. Well at the time my Dad was unable to afford the car. He was operating a cafe which was on its last legs. Not too long after he was out of the cafe business and somehow was able to finance a 55 Plymouth which turned out to be a disaster. The V8 equipped car was fast but a piece of junk. I think my Dad may have parked it in the dealer's drive in the dark of night and abandoned the payments at some point.

We had an assortment of used cars after that with most coming from the "back row" of Houston car lots. But the 51 was our last Kaiser until I bought a 51 of my own almost 30 years later. I have not driven it in a long time but when I do I will look out for cattle on the road.

I did manage to hit a dog with a Volvo in 1970 late at night when returning from a trip to Austin but still was able to make it home with the grill up against the radiator. Another time a friend and I had borrowed a camper trailer from my brother and were heading home from the coast to Nacogdoches at night and ended up playing "tag" with a horse's ass (a real one). My friend was driving his Ford station wagon and the horse ended up turning every way we did as it ran ahead of the car. We avoided any serious damage.

A Kaiser-Frazer Puzzle

Here is something completely different for you to kill time with. Find the words in the scrambled letters--they may be across left to right or right to left, down or diagonal. You can double click and get large version of puzzle and then right click on that and print it.

Have fun!

51 Kaiser getaway car--the watermelon caper

When I was growing up in and around Conroe, Texas, there were still quite a few farms. Watermelons were a substantial source of income especially in the area west of Conroe. I doubt farming can compete with the real estate developers today as Conroe and Houston are almost the same now.

All these watermelons were a temptation for boys on a hot early summer night--sneak in to a patch and pick a couple to enjoy the sweetness. We figured the farmer had calculated that in to the price of raising the melons. Much earlier when we lived in Louisiana I can remember walking through a melon patch on the way to a favorite pond for a swim. The harvest was over by this time but still many melons left. So many in fact that we did not hesitate to crack them open and just scoop out the heart to eat and then go to the next.

I got my driver's license shortly after turning 14 in the fall of 1951. We had a 51 Chevrolet pickup (it was loaded with two extras--radio and deluxe heater) and a 51 Kaiser Special. I learned to drive in the pickup but soon graduated to the Kaiser since my dad used the pickup for work. My mom did not drive so I had the job of taking her to the grocery store and on other short trips. At some point I drove for a trip she and my brother and I took to see her family in San Antonio. That was either in the summer of 1952 or 1953. I thought I was pretty important by then!

I pretty much had permission to drive the car on almost any night especially in the summer. And my dad had an account at the local flying red horse (Magnolia) station so I could fill it up when needed. Sometimes the other boys along with me would throw in some change to get gas which was as I recall was around 25 cents per gallon.

Anyway some local guy had managed to get his car shot at by a farmer and had the damage to show for it. Of course we had to try to prove we could do the job without getting shot at. We may have thought the guy had invented his story or maybe we were just stupid...

After some long-term planning (about 15 or less minutes probably) we had our master plan for the job. We would drive out to the area and drive up and down the road which split the patch into two sections. We figured if there was anyone on guard we would spot him for sure I guess. As I recall the moon was close to full and there was reasonable visibility into the patch even with the lights off. Of course there was also good visibility for someone to see a car driving up the road, turning around, and then repeating the trip from the other direction. Naturally that was not included in our long-term plan.

Anyway the all clear was given and the caper was on. I stopped the car and the guys hit the field in a sprint. All but Skeeter made it back and into the car. His door was open and he was starting to load a melon in when the shots were fired. I hit the gas and Skeeter grabbed on to the door and managed to get in the car. We could hear the rock salt (I guess it was) hitting the metal. It sounded like cannon balls to me and I could visualize the holes in the car. Fortunately for us the rock salt shot did not do any damage to the car or to us.

I can't recall for sure but this may have been our last watermelon heist.

Dad's Birthday--trips from long ago

If my Dad was living he would have been 103 July 14. My brother called me that day and we talked about when we were kids living in Louisiana. I am about 20 months older then he is.

One of his memories was going to Shreveport to eat Mexican food. This was always a treat. Dad was a big fan of Mexican food and even when he was in the last years of his life he liked to have a kind of burrito casserole that I prepared for him. He was known as Mollie to friends and relatives when much younger because he was always making hot tamales. Mom said she used to get a little disturbed at him for this since he would use up needed food items to make tamales.

My brother also remembered that we used to drive to an area near Shreveport (Greenwood I think) to swim in a large facility that would likely be a water park if it were around today. We both recalled it was large and fun. I think it was shut down due to some scare about polio.

My Dad liked to scare us by driving fast up hills on the unpaved roads we traveled. This was of course before seat belts and my brother and I would bounce up and down in the back seat almost hitting the roof when we topped over the hills. We thought it was fun!

In those days the little town where we lived was connected only by gravel roads to the outside world. And actually the paved roads were not very good. It used to be said that boundary line between Texas and Louisiana did not need to be marked because the highway always narrowed by two feet at the border. It was always dusty from traffic and it was a big day when the town people had the road through town oiled to lessen the dust. The road was eventually paved about the time we moved away to Texas.

I was thinking after my brother's call about another big event that took place in Shreveport and that was the Louisiana Hayride. We attended the "farewell" Hank Williams show when he was leaving the Hayride to join the Grand Ole Opry. I had to look up the date for that and it was June 3, 1949 so we would have been traveling in our 48 Frazer Manhattan my Dad had bought the previous summer. Adults had to pay 60 cents and kids 30 cents for admission according to the source I found. We left the show while Hank was still doing encores. We listened on the car radio as we drove. I remember the announcer saying something like "the next 30 minutes of the Lovesick Blues will be brought to you by...." Later in the summer we moved back to Texas.

Any trip out of our town was an adventure but these trips were special. The "biggest" trip ever was a family vacation to Colorado, but that's a story for another day.

Kaiser Frazer Monthly Bulletin List

I recently took the time to organize my collection of Kaiser Frazer Owners Club news bulletins. The bulletins have been issued monthly since 1962 and represent one of the most valuable benefits provided by the club to members. Each issue has information about local, regional, and national events for club members along with ads for parts, literature, and cars for sale or wanted. Over the years I have purchased both parts and literature from ads in the bulletins and I have also sold a number of items.

If you are interested in collecting the bulletins I have compiled a list starting with the first issue in 1962. Tom Wilson, who was then the Treasurer of the club, had the idea of printing a bulletin on a monthly basis for club members. Evidently ads had been part of the club magazine in the early stages and since all the magazines prior to this time had a designation of Volume 1 Tom chose to start with Volume 2 for the new publication. The first issue accordingly is denoted Volume 2, Number 1 and has the date 9-62.

I have created a pdf file that lists all issues through October 1998. I have noted the approximate times of editor changes and listed the editors. This file is available for download at my site.


If you find any errors please let me know.