Chronology of Fideler Henry Js
Number 1:
This is K514-002510, taken the day it was purchased; October 28, 1950 from N.L. Motor sales in Sioux Falls, SD. This car is the 1510th six cylinder Henry J produced. It was driven from the factory to Sioux Falls and was used as their demonstrator. It had 800 miles on it when purchased. Its manufacture date was September 11, 1950. This Henry J, as most early ones, was Aloha green. Special equipment included overdrive and heater. The heater was a 1947-48 Kaiser/Frazer “Air Conditioner” heater, probably dealer installed. The front vent windows were stationary (could not be opened) and there was no molding around the steering column where it meets the dash.
A few years later (license plate says 1953), the car, in keeping with the trends of the 1950s was customized with 1951 Chevrolet tail lights and a tutone paint job. Check out the mud flaps!
It turned out to be a great car for the South Dakota winters.
Unfortunately, one dark night on a heavily graveled rural road in the spring of 1955, K514-002510 met its demise. Despite the fact that the accident caused the car to roll completely and land back on its wheels, it was still driven home from the scene. It couldn’t be defeated that easily.
Number 2:
This Cape Verde Green K523 (1952 four cylinder Corsair) model was purchased in Louisville, KY in 1956 by my father after he was discharged from Fort Knox. On the way back home to South Dakota, it threw a rod bearing, which was replaced in Indiana.
Three army buddies drove / rode home from Fort Knox and had the 4 cylinder engine working pretty hard (the car did not have overdrive). There were routine stops for leisure and rest along the way and eventually Henry did make it back to South Dakota.
After it arrived home, the 4 cylinder threw another rod so the engine, transmission and rear end from car Number 1 were installed in it making it a 6 cylinder car (with overdrive).
The car was last spotted in the late 1950s on a street in Omaha, Nebraska. It was all decked out!
Number 3:
This 1952 Henry J Vagabond, K524-1045807, shipped without a trunk lid and without a Continental kit. In 1959, Erv began converting it to a pickup. He got a deal on this one via a want ad in the Sunday paper. Since he already had a family car, he decided to take a shot at making a pickup. The car was originally Cardinal (maroon) in color but had been painted white by a previous owner. Just as with car Number 1, 1951 Chevrolet taillights were used on the pickup as well.
A work in progress…
The pickup was traded even-up for a Peacock Blue 1953 Corsair (see Number 4). Years later, in 1966, a co-worked mentioned he had spotted “That pickup you made” in a salvage yard on Locust street in Omaha. It was purchased back and the second restoration began. Unfortunately, the block was now cracked and it seemed there were no Henry J engines to be found in 1966 (this was before he’d heard of KFOCI). Another co-worker had a wrecked 1955 Chevy sitting on his farm. This ’55 Chevy had already had its 265 CID V8 engine replaced with a 283 CID V8. The 283 was removed from the Chevy and installed in the HJ pickup. Due to the low rear end gearing (4.55:1) it did not perform very well. In fact, first and second gear were not even necessary - you could spin the wheels in high gear from a dead stop. It also received a new paint job and color schema in 1966. The ‘53 Buick parked behind it was another of Erv's creations.
Number 4:
Car Number 3 was traded to a used car dealer for this 1953 Henry J Corsair in Peacock Blue. The car wasn’t driven much and was sold to fund another project.
Number 5:
This 1953
Corsair, in Cerulean Blue, was advertised in the Omaha World Herald in 1963.
The car was purchased for $25 knowing the 4 cylinder engine was shot. A co-worker
(there were lots
of those) was junking a 1951 Ford so the flathead V8 was removed from the Ford
and installed in the Henry J. With the flathead Ford, it would go like the wind!
The early 1960s was not a time when people thought Henry Js would ever become collector cars so the decision was made to convert this one to a panel truck. A few weeks into the project, sitting at a red light, the car behind it was rear-ended so hard it was pushed up into this one and this car was pushed up into the car ahead of it. Instead of being converted to a panel truck, it was converted into a Henry J accordion.
Number 6:
This 1953 Henry
J Corsair Deluxe, K534-006927, is without a doubt my favorite. It was
spotted sitting at
a filling station in Omaha, Nebraska. It was for sale and had a burned valve.
For $55 the car could be purchased and it was. The valve was repaired and
the plan was to sell it for a profit. At
this point we owned car Number 3 (the pickup) again and who needed two Henry Js?
Even though I liked the older style grill on Number 3 much better, I really liked the color of this one – Peacock Blue. It was 1967; who would have thought Henry Js would ever become collectible? Eventually the decision was made to hang on to this one instead of selling it. Owning a Henry J at this time was somewhat of a novelty so it was painted Canary Yellow over a Mercury Cougar green. You can see the inside of the trunk in the above photo is still Peacock Blue.
Shortly after the car was painted, a careless driver took a left turn into it. The damage was repaired and later that summer it was rear-ended at a stoplight. That collision did much more damage. It was again repaired then repainted using a lighter green around the bottom –
This was our family’s “second car” from 1967 till 1974. By the time the 1970s hit this car was relegated to the role of “Winter driver” so the nice ones could be kept out of the salt which is used to remove snow from the streets. As a result, this 6 cylinder with overdrive model became very weary and worn. The engine and drive train was still in great shape but the body was full of bondo - all seams filled and lots of patch work. It was really a worker though. It was painted once again in January of 1974, only all yellow this time.
It was sold, on a whim, shortly thereafter. The above photo was taken the day it was sold. Later, in May of 1974, the person who bought it called to inform us that it was totaled in a rear-end collision with a semi-tractor trailer. He said he saw it coming, and could see the driver couldn’t stop, so he jumped out of the car just before impact. It was hit so hard the keys and the cigar lighter were laying on the package shelf behind the rear seat. We bought it back for $50 and pulled the engine, trans and many, many other parts off it. Some have been used in other cars (Number 8 in particular) so its legacy lives on.
Number 7:
This 1953 Henry J Corsair Deluxe, Serial number, K534-008828, was a real gem. We were at a friend's new house one Sunday afternoon in the fall of 1970 when we noticed this car in the driveway of the house next door. This was the first “nice” Henry J I had ever seen. Seeing this car, after experiencing only the $50 types we could find sitting around, was a real treat. It was so original, and very well preserved and complete. The owner said he was saving the car for his son who would get his driver's license in the spring. In February of 1971, it was spotted on a used car lot in Millard, Nebraska. Apparently "the son" wanted a new Pontiac Firebird instead because this Henry J had been taken in on trade for one. A deal was made and the car was ours. Unfortunately, we could not keep it. It was sold on a cold February morning, as the picture indicates showing the exhaust hitting the cold air. At this time, we had another restoration going so this car was sold to fund that project. This car provided the inspiration for what was yet to come.
Number 8:
This Peacock
Blue 1953 Corsair Deluxe was spotted behind a chicken coupe on a farm north of
Summerfield, KS on July 5, 1971. It was a twin to car number 6, which we still
owned at the time. The original owner purchased it from Bob Fuller Motor Company
in Amarillo, TX on April 13,
1953 (I have the original bill of sale) and drove it back to Summerfield. The owner raced motorcycles in Lincoln,
Nebraska. He broke his leg in an accident in 1957 and was in a cast for over a
year. When he got out of the cast, he purchased a new Pontiac and the Henry J sat
in the same spot till 1971. It had 33,000 miles on it.
It was purchased for $65 in November of 1971.
The car was worked on all through the 1971 Christmas season –
By the early
1980s we were tired of Kaiser-Frazer cars and began selling them off. By 1982, there
just the two Henry Js left. This one, and car Number
9. I purchased
this one in
March of 1982. It was my daily driver for the next 6 months. During that
time I added a factory radio and factory signal lights (salvaged from car Number
6). I also installed the
dashboard cover, backup lights and eventually the air vents from car number 6 in it.
For ten years I did almost nothing with this car except an occasional trip to the store before the tires had completely rotted. It sat in my garage till 1992 - that's when I learned of John Parker and the KFOCI remanufacturing fund. Now rubber products and parts that were unavailable in the 1960s through the early 1980s, were being re-manufactured. I bought floor mats, all new window rubbers, new door scuff plates and various other rubber products from John Parker. I put a new set of wide whitewall 6.40s on it and had new cloth sewn into the seats and door panels, retaining the original and very nice, alligator material. By the end of September 1992, this J had been transformed. The car saw almost no daylight and was seldom driven until 1999 when I began working on it again. In Oct 2001 it was repainted and the chrome was replated or replaced with NOS.
Here it sits proud again in July 2002
Here it is "among friends." This photo was taken at the KFOC National convention in Auburn, Indiana.
Number 9:
The back of this photo is dated March 9, 1974. That day, this 1951 Henry J was purchased from an attorney who had settled the owner's estate. It had been sitting in a heated garage in Red Oak, Iowa since 1958. As is evident in the photo, it was literally gathering dust. It was towed home behind the '51 Frazer we were restoring when he sold car Number 7. We learned of this car via a neighbor who was taking classes at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. When an attorney came to speak to their class, he mentioned that he collected cars and often acquired them as a result of settling estates. When he mentioned that one was a Henry J, she immediately informed us. This 24,000-mile, rust free car with just about every KF accessory you could imagine on it was almost pristine. The original owner worked for a KF dealer and pasted every new part he could on this car. The car is a 1951 model but the original owner added a factory Continental kit and when he did so, he added “Vagabond” script on the fenders. The one dark spot in all of it was that he installed the newer style taillights on the fender tips. They look just fine on the car but they were not introduced till the 1952 Corsair models (Corsair and Corsair Deluxe). The fact that the housings were caulked as opposed to using rubber gaskets as when they were factory issue is evidence they were added later.
This photo was
taken just 2 months later at the Omaha Auto Show. After a good washing and waxing this Mariner Gray
over Blue Satin Henry J shined up nicely. The full wheel covers replaced the
small hub caps and looked quite sharp on it as well.
Eventually the Vagabond badging was removed and the tutone sanded off (we didn’t know that dealer applied tutones were authentic on Henry Js) and in May 1975, the car was repainted in Blue Satin. Unfortunately, we never got to the job of installing the correct tail lights back on it.
Here it is a
week after it was painted, at the Kaiser Frazer Owner’s Club Midwest Division
Meet in Sterling, Ill. It tied for first place in the Henry J class.
I entered it in the Kaiser Frazer Owners Club Midwest Division Fall meet in Bloomington, MN in September, 1976. I was a teenager and anxious to show off the J that would be mine. The car again took first place in the Henry J class. Another ironic twist is that car Number 8 (the one I now own) took second place in the Henry J class at that meet.
In August 1977, I drove the car to Springfield, IL for the KFOCI National convention (above photo) where we chose not to have it judged.
I lost interest in KF cars shortly thereafter, and abandoned the car hobby for several years.
A few years later, when car Number 8 became available, I decided I liked that one better. That decision was made mainly because you don’t see nearly as many 1953 Henry Js as you do the original 1951 style.
One notable story about car Number 9 – It was photographed at the Midwest Division Meet in MN in 1976 and this picture of it appeared in the book, “Dinosaur Cars.”
In this rear shot of the Henry J,
you
can see the caption erroneously identifies it as a 1953 model. I’m sure the
newer style taillights confused the author. The author did not approach or
consult us when the photo was taken. In fact, we didn’t even know about it
until after the book was in print. A local KFOCI member called to inform us
after his wife, a librarian, spotted the photo while she was filing the new
book.
This photo has probably confused a number of people with those new style tail lights. I assure anyone who has seen that book, this car is indeed a 1951 model. The taillights were changed to the new style years before we got it. In 1986 the folks were transferred across country so they had to sell some cars quickly. I would've liked to have gotten this one too, but I had nowhere to store it at the time and I wasn't willing sell car number 8 to get it.
Below is one of the last photos taken in summer 1986 just before it was sold. It had just turned over 30,000 miles.
It was sold to a KFOCI member in Pennsylvania in the summer of 1986. In September 2003, I spoke to the owner and he still has the car. He informed me that he changed the tail lights back to the correct configuration and that he is currently "redoing" the car again. He also commented that of the 9 classic cars he owns, this Henry J is the most maintenance free in the bunch.
Number 10:
I couldn’t find
any personal photos of this car but it is the Henry J pictured in the book “The
Last Onslaught On Detroit.”
The above photo was also published in Automobile Quarterly, in 1971, listing Neil Greener as the owner.
It
was purchased in Minneapolis in June of 1996 and was transported to its new home in Seattle, WA. It was
Number 11:
This 1951 Henry J, in Mariner Gray, was for sale in 1987 in Seattle, WA. Not in need of any cars at that time, we passed on it.
In 1998,
it was spotted for sale in one of the local “Auto Shopper” magazines and this
time it was snatched up.
The
brake cylinders had to be fixed right there in the seller’s yard before it could be towed home.
Since car Number 10 was still in his
stable, and was more original than this one, he decided to sell this 6 cylinder
with overdrive model. It was sold, sight unseen, within a couple days of being
advertised. Just after the buyer left with the car, another prospect called about it.
The fellow was very disappointed to learn the car was already sold.
He was even more upset that he had purchased a non-refundable plane ticket to come up and buy
it. Feeling a soft spot for this fellow, and really believing another
decent Henry J could be found, car Number 10 was offered to this buyer who flew
up and purchased it right away.
The lesson
learned from this experience was how difficult it had become to find a decent
Henry J. Within just the past couple of years, it had become very difficult to find a
decent Henry J. Since the fellow who purchased this car lived just a few hours
away, contact was maintained with him. After a nation-wide search ensued
looking for a car
to replace it we had almost given up.
One day in 2000, came a phone call asking if we were interested in buying the car back. It was on the truck to its new home in Arizona within days.
In October of
2002 the car was reupholstered using black alligator vinyl, which was an option
in the 1951 Henry J.
The car was featured in November 2004 issue of Hemming's Classic Car magazine.
Number 12:
This 1952 Henry
J Vagabond was advertised in the Minneapolis paper in August and October of 1995.
I called about
it and did not think to ask the seller if it was a Vagabond model. The ad simply stated “1952 Henry J.”
There are probably some Henry J aficionados saying “The Vagabond had a Continental spare
tire on the back, this one doesn’t so it isn’t a Vagabond…” The fact is, there were some 1952 Henry J
Vagabonds that snuck out without them. Richard Langworth’s book “The Last
Onslaught On Detroit” states “… Continental kit which MOST of them had…” This is not the only Vagabond that made it
out without the tire: Car Number 3 was a 1952 Vagabond and it didn’t have one.
I have also spoken with two other Henry J Vagabond owners who informed me their
cars didn’t have them to begin with either (they each had added one). When I
saw the ad for this car in 1995, I called and the owner informed me all chrome
had been replated and the rubber was all new. He also said that it had a new paint job
in 1993. The car was located in Bemidji, MN, some 250 miles away. I was not in
the market for another car at that time so I passed.
In June 2001 the car showed up for sale on Ebay. I took a Saturday and drove up to look at it.
I was immediately impressed by it so I bid and won. Soon there after I fetched it home.
I spent a lot of time getting the engine and transmission rebuilt. The paint was new in 1993 and since it was inside ever since, it still shines up nicely.
The upholstery was another story. The door panels are in fine shape and the backseat is almost perfect. The front seat, on the other hand, was badly torn and faded. The early Henry Js used a number of different plaids, patterns and an unusual textured vinyl so finding a material that would match is impossible. It seemed I'd have to redo everything some day. In Sept of 2004, good fortune stepped in when I spotted an ad for a Henry J front seat on ebay. I couldn't believe it when I pulled the ad up and saw the seat was not only in perfect shape, but it was the exact plaid and pattern I needed for this car.
I installed
the new seat
immediately upon receipt.
Here is the a photo of the completed project –
After owning this car for over four years, it is now apparent to me that the earlier (1951 and 1952 Vagabond models) Henry Js are the ones everyone recognizes and remembers. When I drive my 1953, people often ask “What the hell is that?” When I drive the earlier one, more people know the car.
Number 13:
Despite its unlucky number, this 1951 Henry J is probably the Jewel in the crown. Yes, this car looks just like a 1953 model but therein lies a tale: This car was pulled off the assembly line in 1951 and "given some upgrades." It was built especially for Edgar Kaiser, president of Kaiser-Frazer Motor Corporation upon Joseph Frazer's departure, and son of Henry J Kaiser. This was Edgar Kaiser's personal car. My father purchased it from Edgar F. Kaiser Jr., grandson of Henry J. Kaiser, in November of 2004. More info to come when it's available, but I will point out that this is the last Kaiser automobile that was owned by the Kaiser family and it has been resting comfortably in a warehouse in Seattle since the early 1980s. It arrived at its new home in January 2005.