The Big Gamble

In an improvised theater in an old army hangar at Willow Run, Kaiser-Frazer dealers gathered to see their company's new models. The dealers were gloomy: their share of U.S. auto sales had slumped from an early postwar 5 1/2% to 1%; they knew that K-F had staked its entire future on the new models, pledging all its assets for the $44 million RFC loan which made the new line possible.

As the gleaming new cars rolled across the stage, the dealers perked up. The sleek, stylish new Kaiser set Texas dealers whooping, rodeo-fashion. Powered with a new 115-h.p., six-cylinder K-F-made engine, the new Kaiser also had optional Hydra-Matic shift (purchased from General Motors). Other selling points: a bigger window area, padded instrument panel to protect front-seat riders in accidents.

But what raised the roof was K-F's new, still unnamed low-priced car. It is a five-passenger two-door sedan which President Edgar Kaiser hopes to sell at around $1.175 f.o.b. Willow Run--$250 cheaper than the more luxurious two-door Ford or Chevrolet. At the sight of it, Midwest dealers swarmed across the stand, lifted the 2,400-lb. car waist-high and carried it around the room.

This week, when K-F showed its new models at Chicago's Auto Show, the public got its first chance to see the low-priced car. Its 100-in. wheelbase is more than a foot shorter than a Ford is, and its design combines something of Ford and Studebaker, and the upswept rear fenders of Cadillac. Inside, it is stripped of everything but essentials (no radio, clock or chromium trim). For additional economy, the body's top and rear are stamped all in one piece, with no rear trunk. Instead, the luggage space is behind the rear seat, which can also be pulled down to provide extra storage or cargo space. The front seat is hollowed out to provide leg room for the rear seat passengers. With a four-cylinder, 74-h.p. Willys engine (a six-cylinder, 76-h.p. de luxe version is optional), the car gets a reported 35 miles to the gallon.

With the slick new models, the weakness of the company was not in the cars but in the men to sell them. K-F's dealer organization, never first-rate, was in poor shape. Its 4,600 agencies had melted to 3,200, and hardly half of the survivors seemed to know how to sell. Edgar Kaiser had to find a way to pep up his dealers to match his cars.

But the big question, still unanswered, was whether the U.S. public wants a stripped-down, low-priced car which, like Ford's famed Model T, would be merely transportation. Most automakers think it doesn't, and that car buyers prefer to pay more to keep up with the Joneses and get more room and some chrome-spangled luxury with their transportation. K-F hopes to prove that other motormakers are wrong, when it starts mass production of its new car in June.

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