1953 Kaiser Commercials | Manhattan | Henry J | Dragon

[@jamesmisener3006]

Mom's first car was a used Henry J. No trunk lid. Lots of memories. Cheers 🇨🇦

[@kfclub]

Coolest mom in town!

[@jimmyfleetwood1118]

Nice memories. I have the '51 H-J my grandfather bought new. It was his, then my father's, and now mine.

[@ufoengines]

I'm sold ! I'll take two!

[@whatsamattayu3257]

In all my years, I've never seen a Kaiser or Henry J on the street. I remember Sears selling a rebadged Henry J, as the Allstate, in their stores in the early 1950's.

[@MrSkeltal268]

Thanks for sharing these!

[@kfclub]

Glad you like them!

[@BillLaBrie]

My dad had a 51 Frazier that he loved. Considered it among the best of the many cars he’d owned. It probably saved his life when he swerved to avoid a careless driver on a farm road and went through a telephone pole at highway speed, landing upside-down in a ditch.

[@gumby3123]

Nice car in it's days

[@jeffersondavis2530]

So cool ! In Wisconsin ,I swear in the 60's every other garage had a Kaiser parked behind the barn . They simply could not forget their Kaiser.

[@Jonaontheradio]

I can attest to the fact that a 3 year old (me) could easily hold the steering wheel for her very pregnant mommy who got severe leg cramps behind the wheel. I'm still proud of myself! I loved our dark maroon '54 Kaiser Manhattan

[@kfclub]

Yes the good ol' days.

[@pilbomags488]

You're 72 now

[@OldRustySteele]

Note the background scenes when they show the car running. Unlike the Detroit “Big 3” (GM, Ford, Chrysler), Kaiser was a California-based company. You can see early ’50’s home architecture and mountains in the background in those scenes. Car advertising budgets got much bigger by the 1960’s, so you saw cars in all kinds of scenes by then. But not so much in the early ‘50’s as they filmed those in more-local places to save money.

[@TheGbeecher]

Kaiser dragon 🐉- unique automobile, but a last ditch effort, to stay alive for Kaiser...😢❤

[@jimihendrix1575]

"Your safety is important to us." "Not important enough to provide safety belts, but pretty important."

[@eddylauterback1312]

I'd buy one today after seeing this! But seriously they even made cars for Sears in 52 and 53. Sears had them in their catalog. Many believed Sears made them. If you'd bought a car from Sears and had a Kodak camera in the glove box, you'd have 3 companies slowly going down the drain.

[@BillLaBrie]

Also a Xerox’d copy of the title in that glovebox….😂

[@chha6439]

I’ll take three of each please… not particular of color…

[@kfclub]

What 1953 Kaiser Frazer did you drive?

[@helios1912]

I was inspecting a building in Frederick Maryland , opened a door a there was a nice Kaiser Manhattan sitting there. Give me a number--how many K-Fs are thought to still exist?

[@richardprice5978]

none gramp's 2x car's didn't run and were parked ( and lightly parted out to friends over the years for there factory style restoration ) out back under apple and maple trees/back 40 and probably by now newcore'd or mother nature got it back/dust in the wind had they been restored in the 90's-2000 i might have had the potential chances but by 2012 it was way to much for me to tackle ( not a body guy so im useless and not super rich like gramp's aka poverty for me ) and the best i could hope for was a rat-rod i and family didn't do anything with them just left there to rot last i knew sadly 1969 charger owner ( one day he told me after i drove mine/got mine to my surprise he considered mountainy and buying a SE 440 or hemi car but didn't dare to make gramma mad lolz ) nowadays anyways. but fun to understand my gramp's and in the 50's/early 60's he said from day one the 6cly ( plus automatic i think with the optional overdrive ) kept blowing head gasket's and the alignment wouldn't stay aka it eat tire's quickly going to SLC-Utah and back 100 mile's daily for work on base so out of frustration he parked it one day ( mint other than the same gasket problem again ) and said tomorrow/next weekend he'd fix it again or run it into town/dealership and never did RIP-gramp's 2014-ish after that the household was pure ford's or at least into the 1990's

[@thisbandreallystix]

3:15 Is that a judge? Lol. (He sure looks like he's dressed like one.)

[@gumby3123]

No back in the day you dressed up even to fly on jet planes " just like most things dressing up has gone down hill"! People don't care anymore "! Watch some old movies , you will see what i mean enjoy the old cars and the style cause we don't have style like that and making a statement with all the two.tone paint and chrome

[@kfclub]

Very funny thing to point out!

[@tonychavez2083]

Were these flathead sixes in the Manhattan? I think these were more popular in the Eastern states.

[@edarcuri182]

Yep. Kaiser bought an engine originally designed for fork lifts and stationary generators, an industrial engine. They upgraded it and, despite its provenance, proved satisfactory as an auto engine. Kaiser even looked into designing a V-8 (which would have transformed the beautiful car) but determined it cost prohibitive. Considering how many of the independents needed such an engine, I am surprised that no joint ventures were put in place to design one for use by all of the companies in the venture.

[@tonychavez2083]

@@edarcuri182 I’m sure it was not quick but tough as nails.

[@richarddenny5340]

Kaiser may have survived had they developed a V8 and an automatic transmission. The cars produced were beautiful and stylish.

[@jmpecore]

My grandfather had one like this. My father said it was the worst quality car. Door handles fell off, etc.

[@paulcheek5711]

better than todays junk

[@michaelfoort2592]

Laughable

[@it1988a]

What a junk...a death trap