Kaiser

There were two old cars. The one still in the closed transport van was white with red leather seats. Already out of the transport, the other was a Kaiser sedan, the earliest model. Not possible to tell the exact year, because the 1947-49 models were unchanged, but the front grill is a dead giveaway for make and model


What brought the Kaiser to mind in a dream? Dreams are not contacts from someone, alive or dead, who’s trying to communicate, but something conscious, subconscious, or unconsciously in mind recently, likely from yesterday. Undoubtedly it was driving on 98 West through what my grandfather called “Little Dothan,” past the pathetic and worsening building that opened as the art-deco finished Kaiser-Frazer dealership.

Visited on my blog before, it was the beautiful showroom that I visited with my parents to see the brand new 1947 Kaiser and Frazer cars right after WW2.


The to-us-now-dumpy first Kaiser 


sold well after WW2 because of the extreme car shortage, and because it was brand new, and because of the reputation of Henry Kaiser and Joseph Frazer. The first redesign was for 1951, 


a simply beautiful car for the day


before CookieMonster's first-cousin ChromeDevil came to gloss over that the company couldn't afford either another redesign or a V8 engine. 

The showroom's stylish, classy round window is still there, boarded up. Currently vacant, the building has been used for various business efforts over the years. I will be sad to see it pulled down, but it’s probably time. Passing it Thursday on my way in from the beach where I had lunch with priest friends, my tide of memories rolled back in, including of Pop’s Kaiser sedan that he bought in the late 1940s to replace his aging 1937 Chevrolet. I thought to stop and snap a picture with the iPhone, but did not, then regretted not stopping, but did not go back. It was a beautiful showroom then, and is still as beautiful in my mind as Pop’s Kaiser in my memory and as the Kaiser car in my dream. 

This led to an adventure, Kit Foster's Car Port blog he ran from December 2004 to February 2013, then abruptly stopped. It has a good synopsis of the Kaiser-Frazer experiment, and there's something about DeSotoland that I'll have to return and visit. 

All this doubtless was buttressed by yesterday's stop at the five-point corner at the end of 4th Street and glancing at the Studebaker dealership still sitting pointed at the intersection, but half boarded up and the showroom filled with junked appliances, what a shame, another beautiful showroom and another beautiful car. I only hope I did not contribute to the local dealer’s going out of business by going in there so many times and leaving with Studebaker brochures, some of which are still in the Model T Ford Trunk that sits in Joe’s room. 

The mind plays tricks, but sometimes it does really nice things. Sometimes nicer than history. 

TW