Kaiser-Frazer launched an ambitious assault on the Detroit automotive establishment, but was then forced to scale back its plans. 

On January 20, 1946 at the posh Waldorf Astoria Hotel on Park Avenue in New York, the Kaiser-Frazer Corporation was officially introduced to the American public. Led by industrialist Henry J. Kaiser and veteran Detroit automobile man Joseph Frazer, Kaiser-Frazer stepped up as the USA’s newest major carmaker, proposing to compete head-on against the giants of the Motor City—an audacious undertaking in those days. K-F had an impressive factory, too: the giant B-24 Liberator bomber plant at Willow Run, Michigan, previously operated by Ford.

Two prototype cars were on display at the Waldorf that day: the Frazer, an upmarket but conventional sedan priced in the Buick range, and the low-priced Kaiser Special, one of the most radical new American automobiles in years. The Kaiser’s headline-grabbing features included unitized body/frame construction, torsion-bar suspension on all four wheels, and front-wheel drive.

Developed by K-F chief engineer Henry C. McCaslin, recruited from Willys-Overland, the Kaiser K-85 prototype featured giant trailing arms front and rear suspended by lateral torsion bars, a setup the company called Torsionetic. The unit-construction body/frame was of pressed steel, but at one point Henry Kaiser, who had huge interests in the aluminum industry, was seriously experimenting with all-aluminum construction.

The FWD powertrain, a semi-modular unit the company labeled Packaged Power, used conventional Detroit components laid out in an unconventional fashion, below. A Continental L-head six-cylinder engine fed 92 horsepower to a standard three-speed manual transmission, then to an angle-drive transfer case and a Spicer-type differential under the oil pan. The Motor City hadn’t seen anything like this in years. The last American front-drive production car was the Cord 812, discontinued in 1937.

There were some problems with this bold plan, however. According to internal estimates the radical front-drive setup would add $900 to each car, an impossible hurdle for Kaiser-Frazer, which was already challenged in trying to control costs in its battle against Detroit’s low-priced three. Also, supplier Borg-Warner needed millions of dollars and extra time to develop the system properly, and Kaiser-Frazer didn’t have either one as it rushed to beat the Motor City to market with the first new postwar car.

There was one more fatal blow: the front-heavy design required power steering, one more unacceptable cost. Famed auto writer Tom McCahill, who drove one of the FWD prototypes, described the steering effort as “like trying to pull an elephant around by the trunk.” The Detroit establishment didn’t offer power steering until 1951 on the Chrysler Imperial.

So in the first half of 1946, even as features in the workbench magazines like Popular Science and Kaiser print ads (below) continued to boast of the Kaiser Special’s front-wheel drive, different plans were being laid in the Kaiser-Frazer plant at Willow Run. When production began in June, the 1947 Kaiser was now a conventional front-engine, rear-drive sedan with a standard ladder frame, just like its Frazer stablemate.