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.

KF Parts in 1976--cheap by today's prices

I have been sorting some old files here lately and one item I ran across is a listing of parts and prices from Buchinger's Kaiser-Frazer Parts dated 1976.

There are some interesting prices for sure! Here are a few examples.

100154 vent shades for 51-55 Kaiser 4 door $14.50 for the set

207844 outside door handles 51-55 Kaiser $7.50

214411 full disc wheel cover 51-54 Henry J, Darrin $6.50

216221 heater control valve 51-54 Kaiser $14.75

202297 drive shaft support insulator 47-50 Kaiser, 47-51 Frazer $0.45

213734 r tail light lens 52-54 Henry J $6.25

213735 l tail light lens 52-54 Henry J $6.25

208469 master cylinder 51-55 Kaiser $14.50

If you had been into KF at the time would you have stocked up on any items? I joined the club in 1981 and I recall buying parts at the first National I attended in Pigeon Forge, TN. Some of these I needed at the time but many just looked like items that would for sure be needed some time in the future. I bought some overdrive electrical components for next to nothing that came in handy and I likely have a few things left even today that I have yet to need. I remember finding a whole unopened box of the 202297 drive shaft insulators listed above at a swap meet in Decatur TX (I paid $5 for the full box.) before the St Louis National. I kept a few for my use and took the rest with me to sell at my vending space. John Parker I think was selling these at the time for around $2.00 each and a car requires 4. I priced them at $0.50 each and really hawked them. Most people did not even know what they were. Some bought a spare set after I explained the use. John came by and saw them and told me he would buy any I had left over and I ended up selling him quite a few at the end of the day.

Another comment about the Buchinger's list is the order blank stated not to send remittance with order and that a bill would be issued for parts and shipping after the order is sent out! How many vendors follow this practice today?

Really big Kaiser...

I have been sorting out my advertising collection. I ran across what may be the largest Kaiser ever built. As far as I know this was a one-off item. The idea was to pack more passengers into the box so-to-speak and of course sell some magnesium and aluminum as well.

Here is the text of the ad (published in MOTOR magazine, date unknown, on page 129):

This 60-foot super-deluxe articulated bus was built at the California magnesium plant of the Kaiser-directed Permanente Metals Corporation. Rolling on Timken Bearings in the wheels, steering pivot, steering gear, steering arm, differential and pinion--22 in all--this marvel of the highways was built especially for Santa Fe Trailways. This manufacturer, like other leaders in the automotive industry, knows the importance of adequate bearing protection. Be sure to look for the trade-mark "TIMKEN" on every bearing you use.

Motor Trend and the 1951 Henry J road test

Someone from the KFOCI called me the other night to talk about literature and told me something I was not aware of. In the November 1950 issue of Motor Trend magazine there was a road test of the new Henry J. Most have seen that issue and noted the cover picture is the Henry J. But he had come across another version of that issue with a completely different front cover--the cover on it was of some custom car. The issue was denoted as Edition C which he suggested might have been for California. It is not at all uncommon to have regional editions of magazines now but I had never realized it was done back as early as 1950. He said the contents appeared to be the same as far as he noticed.

The most important new car in America--Special Issue of the Quarterly

I seem to be stuck on Henry Js. I was looking for a list of Quarterly magazines that I had published and ran across the special issue I did on the Henry J way back in 1987 (Vol 23 No. 2). Almost the entire magazine was devoted to the Henry J. We even reprinted the issue of the Dealer News that was done on the new cars (Vol IV N0. 20, October 1, 1950). This was used by dealers as sales literature and had a high press run. That is the reason it is fairly easy to find today. All Henry J nuts should have a copy of it in their collection.

Quarterly magazine list...

There was a discussion of bulletins and magazines issued by the KFOCI on one of the chats recently. I have complete sets of each (some early issues of the magazine are copies). I will say more about the bulletins in a later blog.

When I first started editing the magazine I had no idea about what had been published before except for the few issues done by Jack Edward some time after I joined the club. I found a few issues here and there and eventually came up with a list of what had been published up to my time on the job. This is in the Collector's Corner article in Vol 23 No 2 for 1987. I compiled the list and sent it out to a large number of long-standing members for their comments. The list as published is complete to the publication date. You can extend it to the last edition I published as editor (Vol 37 No 2 2001) along with the calendar issues done by the Barkers. I am not sure about anything past that as there were many attempts by various volunteers to publish and I am not even sure I could lay my hands on those--they are around here somewhere I guess.

Where are these Henry Js flying to?

I found this picture on an old hard drive. I have no idea of the origin although it may have been saved from an ebay listing someone made. I am not sure what is going on in the pic other than the obvious fact that some 51 Henry Js are being loaded on a plane. The plate on the truck is from Florida and the truck is obviously from a K-F distributor. The cars have plates also as you can clearly see in the pic. The plane is from Pan American which flew a lot of international flights so the cars could have been exports. Any ideas?

Allstate Postcard--rare collectible

Do you want to look for a very rare K-F related collectible? Here is a good candidate for you. This is the postcard for the 1952 Allstate which is super rare. I never was able to find one in all my years of collecting although I have known several collectors that did have them. I can't remember now who sent me this picture of the card. I ran across it on an old hard drive I was digging through.

Ripley Make-A-Bed

Way back when I found a little sales folder for the Ripley Make-A-Bed which converted a 51 or later Kaiser into a bed by allowing the front seat to fold down. I mentioned it in my Editor's Pages in the KFOCI Quarterly back in 1987 (Vol 23 No 3) and asked if anyone had any information about the item. One of the Canadian members replied that indeed he had a 1953 Kaiser his dad bought new that was still fitted with the device. I published his letter and some photos showing the item in the Collector's Corner column in 1988 (Vol 24 No 1).

The folder is described on my literature site.

Recently I learned more about the origins of the bed device on ebay. A literature dealer listed an issue of the Dealer News that I had never seen and it had a feature on the availability of it from the K-F dealer who perfected it. I am quoting the article below to complete the story on the Make-A-Bed.

Twist of a Wrist Turns Kaiser Sedan Into Bed Compartment with
Dealer Ripley's 'Make-A-Bed' Device

Ithaca, N. Y.---Sleepy?
Just draw up a Kaiser and take a nap.

That's what scores of motorists are doing in Ithaca, thanks to the new patented "Make-A-Bed" device the Ripley Motor Co. is offering Kaiser customers as optional equipment.

With a twist of the wrist a Kaiser owner can convert his car interior into a bedroom--equipped with one of the softest beds made.

K-F Dealer M. H. Ripley inaugurated the "Make-A-Bed" feature to meet customer demand for a smartly styled, powerful automobile which could double for sleeping quarters on long trips.

The "Make-A-Bed" accessory, which fits any 1951 or 1952 Kaiser 4-door sedan, is installed in two hours and permits the car seats to be converted into a double bed in just 10 seconds.

A lever similar to the seat adjustment rod--well out of site--permits the back of the front seat to recline until it fits snugly with the rear seat.

The seat can also be adjusted in a reclining position.

Ripley is wholesaling the kits, priced either in single units or in lots of six, to other K-F dealers.

His address is 602 W. Seneca Street, Ithaca, N. Y.

The Dealer News appears to be the issue for September 30 1952. (I saved the pics from the ebay ad but neglected to note the date.)

Special last minute prep for judging...

Some have a regular routine when giving the car a last minute prep before judging. Steve Carey likes to touch up the paint on his Henry J radiator cap. He has the technique perfected--he deftly holds the open paint can and the radiator cap in one hand and uses the other hand to load the brush to apply paint. Oops! This picture was made by Tom Stradt showing Steve's back-up technique.

Thoughts from the days when Henry Js and Allstates were new

I noticed on one of the chat pages that there was at least 15 Henry J and Allstate models at the just completed KFOCI National in IL. These were the featured cars and the number that showed up is commendable.

I was reminded that I did see an Allstate on display back in 1952 or 1953 at the Sears store on Shepard Drive in Houston. Last time I checked some years ago this store was still in business. When I was a kid we used to go there at times to shop since it was only a short distance from our home in Conroe although it seemed much farther in those days. Now it is hard to tell the difference in Conroe and Houston. This store had a separate service station with an auto department and the car was there. I can't recall now anything about the color or what impact if any the car had on me. I must have been aware of the Henry J but I can't recall any that were sold by the KF dealer where my Dad purchased the 51 Kaiser. In fact I can't remember anyone having a Henry J (and certainly not an Allstate) at any time in the 50s or 60s.

I remember another experience I had at this store. I bought my first new car in Houston, a 1962 Volvo 544 Sport. I was about to get my MS degree at Sam Houston State in Huntsville TX that summer. I think I took delivery of the car in late Fall 1961 or in early part of 1962. At some point after this I had to be in Houston and stopped in the Sears store to look at some tools they had on sale. This was a deal like they run now in that one got a supply of tools in a box of some sort for a reasonable price. I think it was something like $19.95 for a set in a nice metal box. After looking at the display set I told a clerk I wanted one and he said fine. They had them wrapped and ready to go. However once I paid the clerk picked up a box and said "here this goes with the set." I noticed the wrapped package looked to be almost exactly the same shape as the box. Well when I got home and unwrapped the package it had all the tools in a metal box identical to the one he gave me as an "extra". I gave the extra box to my brother. I still have mine to this day. The box is a nice size for carrying a set of basic tools in the car.

The family KF cars...

In a previous post and in many other places I stated that my dad bought two KF products--a 1948 Frazer Manhattan and a 1951 Kaiser Special. I remember both these cars. The Frazer was a combination with a darker green on top and lighter green on bottom. The Kaiser was a very unadorned car with practically no chrome. Now I have a "faint" memory of an earlier Frazer that came before the Manhattan but always deferred to my dad who thought he only bought the 48 I remember.

Now my dad was a car man when he was young and traded often. He managed to keep some decent cars even during WW II. In the early postwar time he went though several cars--an early Studebaker based on the last prewar design that had paint that fell off in chucks from day one; a gunmetal gray Buick (my dad and his brothers got several cars in a deal with General Motors for lumber); and finally a Hudson of some sort.

I thought he next got an early Frazer that was in a light brown color but he did not think so.

Well I bring this up because I was going through some of my mom's photographs that I boxed up when she passed several years ago and ran across a couple of car pics.

The pic with my brother and me with mom and dad obviously shows the left side of the Manhattan. It has a processing date of January 1951 on the back. We moved back to Texas in the summer of 1949.

The other pic looks like a different car to me. It appears to be one color and the plate looks like one from Louisiana where we lived for several years before coming back to Texas. Also this looks like a plain Frazer to me.

What do you think?

Kaiser Frazer Owners Club, Int.

Any Kaiser-Frazer enthusiast should be a member of the Kaiser Frazer Owners Club, Int. (KFOCI) which was founded in 1959. The Club publishes a Monthly Bulletin which features information about meets and events at the local, regional and national level. The Bulletin also has ads for cars, parts, and literature. Members can run free ads of items for sale or wanted. In addition there is a magazine published four times a year with one issue being a pictorial calendar featuring the cars. The Club has a website that includes information on membership including a way to join online.

One unique benefit of membership is the Manufacturing Fund which has a one-time additional membership fee of $10. This fund makes available certain parts that have been produced based on demand by the membership.

I joined the Club in the early 80s and my first attendance at a meet was the National Convention in Pigeon Forge TN in the summer of 1984. I drove my 54 Kaiser Late Special to that meet. Tom Stradt and I just completed the installation of a Chevy V8 prior to the trip. I have attended all the Nationals since then except for a couple. I missed the meet in Goshen IN in 1995 due to the illness of my father and I missed last year's meet as a consequence of my own health issues. I am making plans to be in Hoffman Estates IL the first week in July at the Chicago Marriott Northwest for this year's convention.

The National meets are a great chance to see some really excellent examples of KF and Willys products. Usually Darrins, Kaiser and Frazer convertibles, Jeepsters, and sometimes factory specials and show cars turn out. Thursday is judging day and is the best time for a one-day visit since a few cars show up only on the judging day. This year the feature cars are the Henry J and Allstate so some really good examples of these should be present.

Another benefit is a number of vendors will be present with parts, literature and other KF items for sale.

You will have a chance to meet others who have interests similar to yours. In my case I still look forward to visiting with some that I met at the very first meet I attended. I see some of these only once a year at the Nationals. The sponsors of this year's National have a website with all the details of the events.

Kaiser-Frazer and Kaiser-Willys service bulletins

I started collecting service bulletins for Kaiser-Frazer products many years ago. In the first issue of the KFOCI Quarterly magazine that I edited in 1985 I published an article on service bulletins. I continued to add to my collection over the years. One goal I had was somehow making this material available to anyone interested in KF cars. I finally realized this goal recently. I was able to borrow copies of a few bulletins I had not been able to find and the complete collection consists of 418 bulletins from KF and 82 from Kaiser-Willys. There are 456 files for the KF bulletins because many revised bulletins are included along with the discontinued versions. All of these (538) were scanned and converted to pdf format resulting in 1173 pages in total.

I used the catalog feature available in the program Adobe Acrobat to make the bulletins searchable. The search function is built in to the free Adobe Reader versions 6 and above for the pc. The full Acrobat or the reader that includes search is required to search the files. The search is rather limited since it was not possible to convert the bulletins to text files with my limited resources--if I could have done that the cost would have been prohibitive. However the catalog feature does allow for search procedures that make it possible to fairly quickly find information without just browsing through 1173 pages!

I recorded four items for each bulletin in the collection. Each of these can be used as the basis for a search either alone or in combination. The four items use the names built in to the catalog feature:

TITLE--this is the actual title from the service bulletin
AUTHOR--I chose this field for the bulletin number
SUBJECT--the group assigned by the factory (with slight changes by me)
KEYWORDS--the year(s) for models covered (last two digits of years separated by space like 52 53)


There are 20 possible SUBJECT entries such as accessory, brakes, body, clutch etc. The factory assigned each bulletin to one of these groups.

If one wanted to search for bulletins on BRAKES the word brakes would be entered in the SUBJECT field of the search. It turns out there are 9 bulletins on brakes that were issued over the years. The search finds these and returns the results listed by titles. The full bulletins are easily displayed with a click of the mouse. With this small number one could quickly determine if any of them may have what was needed. But suppose one wanted just 1949 models coverage. If 49 is entered in the KEYWORDS field under the search for brakes the list produced is reduced to 2 titles. And the search can be made still more versatile. Suppose we are looking for any bulletins on brakes adjustment. One can search for words in the TITLE field. If adjustment is used as a word search in the TITLE field all the titles for brakes that include the word adjustment will display in the results box. There is just 1.

It takes a little time and practice to learn how to search but more detailed instructions are included on the CD with all the files. Of course one can simply read them in random or sequential order without using the search but the search is more fun!

Here we go again--still another KF project

I took on the position of Editor of the Kaiser Frazer Owners Club Quarterly magazine back in 1985 and served in that position until 2002. I created and maintained the first website for the club. And I served the South Central Region as Manager and I organized and sponsored the first Regional meet and several that followed later.

I decided to do this Blog since I still have some knowledge and opinions to share. This will have no official connection with the Kaiser Frazer Owners Club and no set schedule. If I say something that sparks your interest either positive or negative please contribute your reaction.

My father purchased a 1948 Frazer Manhattan and that was followed by a new 1951 Kaiser Special. I admired both these cars and I learned to drive in them and a 1951 Chevrolet pickup. When I reached the stage of life where I could afford a hobby car there was no question it would be a 51 Kaiser. I eventually found one here in Texas in about 1981 and I still own it today. I have added a few more KF products over the years.

I have collected a large assortment of KF literature and memorabilia over the years. Much of this is illustrated at my website. I have scanned and converted much of this material to CDs which are available to KF enthusiasts.

I will post here from time-to-time and will not follow a schedule. You can guide me to any topic that is KF related that you would like to see. If you have an opinion about something that shows up here please use the comments section to share it with all.