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.