Sales Comparison of 1949 Packard 8 to Kaiser Deluxe

[6219_Rules]

Has anyone seen this sales brochure from the Kaiser company in 1949 that compares the Kaiser DeLuxe to the Packard 8 sedan? I thought you all might be interested in it and could comment on it.

[6219_Rules]

The cars you show, B.H., are the ones I was thinking about. The car on the brochure is undistinguished in style. Actually I thought the later Kaisers were quite nice, but as you said they simply could not stand up against the competition. Kaisers would go the way of Nash, Hudson and Rambler ... to make up AMC eventually although the cars themselves would be scrapped. Pitty because the Traveler and Manhattan were really nice looking cars with some neat features. But I am sure Packard was overall a better automobile.

[Guest JT]

When K-F decided to build a convertible their prototypes were severely deficient in frame and body construction (mainly lacking an X frame). They basicly took their sedan and tried to make a convertible out of it.

The 1949 K-F production models were a result of going out and buying the best convertible on the market and copying many of it's reinforcement features. What car did they pattern theirs from? Yes that's right, a Packard.

[Guest JT]

Another interesting note about K-F is that the 1947 front wheel drive model they planned on coming out with had torsion bar suspension. Unfortunately they only built a couple of test models and it never went to production.

[55PackardGuy]

The Kaiser Traveler setup is very similar to the '51 Frazer Vagabond that was in my family for many years. My father used it for a work car and it also made a good huntin' vehicle. I have an old photo somewhere with some happy hunters sitting on the tailgate with their deer stuffed inside the car behind them (heads facing out, of course). The Frazer wasn't a "5-door" though, as the driver's side back door was inoperable. I believe there was room there for a spare, but instead of a tire that's where I sat.

General commentary from my dad was that the car was underpowered and had undersized brakes (even for those days) considering the weight of the vehicle. It had a Continental engine--flathead six.

There's a nice burgundy one (ours was gray) here:

http://public.fotki.com/kfnut/the_frazer_fraternity/

Also a nice pic of a '47 chassis and a bunch of other nifty K-F stuff.

Interesting cars. The later Henry J, which looked a lot like the Frazer, was a fairly popular basis for rods.