The Name Honored Joseph Washington Frazer
A long 123.5-inch wheelbase provided a smooth ride, and the six-cylinder engine, though plodding, delivered excellent fuel economy. But this was a heady age when buyers wanted all the performance and chrome they could get. Though Frazer ultimately got around to optional hood ornaments and more- glittery interiors, the lack of eight-cylinder power would prove an increasing sales liability for the prices charged. Indeed, the ’48 models changed only in detail yet cost even more: $2483-$2746. The Frazer never really went much beyond its original formula. Then, a gross miscalculation.
Henry J, thinking big as usual, geared up for Kaisers by buying Ford’s huge, wartime bomber plant at Willow Run, Michigan. Frazers were nameless “Standards” and Manhattans. But G-P was foundering and sold out to K-F in 1947, so all but the earliest Frazers were built alongside Kaisers. Each offered basic and upmarket models. Frazers were to be built by Graham-Paige in Detroit, lately acquired by Joe and his associates. Both makes began production in June 1946 (for model-year ’47).
Directed to do or die, engineers John Widman and Ralph Isbrandt sheared the top off a sedan, retained B-pillars with little inset glass panes, and purchased beefed-up X-member frames at an inordinate price. Frazer’s 1951 was abbreviated, too, but the cars looked startlingly different, thanks to an effective front and rear redo by Herb Weissinger of K-F Styling. Nor could any ’49 Frazer. It’s estimated that only 15 percent of the total were sold as 1950 models. But at over $3000, the four-door flop-top Frazer simply couldn’t sell in viable numbers. Production for the two seasons came to just under 25,000 units, including a mere 70 Manhattan convertibles. As a result, some 5000 ’49 leftovers were reserialed for a brief 1950 run that ended in the spring of that year.
Predictably, Henry won. In protest, Joe stepped down to the meaningless position of board vice-chairman, and Henry appointed his own son, Edgar, as president. K-F duly tooled for 200,000 cars, but ended up selling just 58,000 for ’49. The ’49 Frazers took on an eggcrate grille, prominent rectangular parking lamps, and large two-lens vertical taillamps. There was also a new four-door Manhattan convertible, but it was a makeshift job at best. A long downhill slide had begun.
Frazer was one of the few genuinely new post World War II American cars, but managed only a short, somewhat unhappy life. The name honored Joseph Washington Frazer, the high-born aristocrat (descended from the Virginia Washingtons) who loved motorcars and became a super-salesman through stints at Packard, Pierce-Arrow, and General Motors. Frazer also worked with Walter P. Chrysler in the 1920s and resuscitated moribund Willys-Overland in the late ’30s. In the early ’40s, Frazer was looking to build a new postwar car, an idea that also occurred to Henry J. Kaiser, the West Coast metals and construction tycoon who’d turned out wartime Liberty ships double-quick.
Full leather upholstery was also available. Yet despite the stiff prices, lack of automatic, and no eight-cylinder engine in sight, K-F enjoyed strong initial sales to earn the press sobriquet of “postwar wonder company.” Still, some observers doubted the dynamic managerial duo. Unfortunately, this Cadillac price rival lacked an automatic transmission of any kind, let alone one to match ultrasmooth Hydra-Matic: just a three-speed manual or the same with optional Borg-Warner overdrive ($80). Even so, K-F succeeded despite postwar materials shortages, forming a crack team of expediters who foraged the country for everything from sheet steel to copper wire. Henry Kaiser, they said, didn’t know an automobile from a motorboat, while Frazer had only sold cars, not built them.
