Kaiser Manhattan History

The Manhattan became Kaiser's flagship trim with the 1951 'Anatomic Design' redesign, sitting above the Special/Deluxe as the best-equipped full-size Kaiser. It carried the same lithe, glassy bodywork that set the 1951–1955 cars apart from Detroit's heavier-looking offerings.

Its lasting claim to fame came late: short on a V8 to answer rivals, Kaiser fitted its 226-cubic-inch flathead six with a McCulloch centrifugal supercharger for 1954, raising output to around 140 hp and making the supercharged 1954 Manhattan the first post-war US production car offered with supercharging. The Manhattan was the only Kaiser model left for 1955, by which point US output had collapsed — Kaiser built just 1,231 cars in its final year, most of them shipped to Argentina, before leaving the American passenger-car market.