Kaiser Special History

The Kaiser Special launched as a 1947 model alongside the costlier Frazer, and the pair were among the first genuinely all-new American cars of the postwar era while the Big Three were still selling warmed-over prewar designs. Styled under Howard 'Dutch' Darrin, the 1947 Kaiser pulled the body out to full width front to rear and did away with separate fenders, giving it a clean 'full-envelope' slab-side form that Detroit would not widely adopt for several more years.

Mechanically conventional — a flathead inline-six driving the rear wheels — the early Kaisers (offered as the Special and the upmarket Custom from 1947 to 1950) sold strongly during the postwar seller's market before sales cooled as the Big Three re-tooled. A radical 'Anatomic Design' restyle, again led by Darrin, arrived in spring 1950 as the 1951 line: lower, glassier, and lighter-looking than anything else on the road, it briefly lifted Kaiser back up the US sales charts at close to 140,000 cars for the model year.

The Special name continued through the marque's final years as the price-leader full-size Kaiser beneath the Manhattan, until US passenger-car production wound down at the end of the 1955 model year.