Junkyard Find: 1951 Frazer

Murilee Martin
by Murilee Martin

While I was photographing a burned-up ’61 Caddy hearse and buying a ’41 Plymouth Special Deluxe sedan at the Brain-Melting Colorado Junkyard last week, I stopped to admire some of the many Kaiser-Frazer products scattered around the many acres of old iron. You’ll need to drop everything and read Ate Up With Motor‘s excellent history of Kaiser-Frazer before continuing with today’s Junkyard Find, so go do that right now.

The 1951 Frazer was just a use-up-the-leftover-Frazer-parts deal, done after Henry J. Kaiser forced Joe Frazer out of company management. A quickie facelift was thrown onto the ’50 Frazer’s snout, but otherwise this car is identical to the 1950 Frazer.

Only about 10,000 ’51 Frazers were sold, making this an extremely rare car today. Valuable? Probably not, but still cool for its historical value.

I seriously considered buying a Frazer instead of the ’41 Plymouth, but these cars are just so heavy that I’d need to use tougher (i.e., more expensive) running gear to get the performance I wanted.

Check out that horn ring!

The Brain-Melting Colorado Yard has so many Frazers (the hood ornament from a late-40s Frazer is pictured here) that it may one day serve as the reservoir for all the competitors in a future Spec Frazer race series. Hey, if we can have Spec Dynasty, why not Spec Frazer?

Murilee Martin
Murilee Martin

Murilee Martin is the pen name of Phil Greden, a writer who has lived in Minnesota, California, Georgia and (now) Colorado. He has toiled at copywriting, technical writing, junkmail writing, fiction writing and now automotive writing. He has owned many terrible vehicles and some good ones. He spends a great deal of time in self-service junkyards. These days, he writes for publications including Autoweek, Autoblog, Hagerty, The Truth About Cars and Capital One.

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  • Moparman426W Moparman426W on Dec 10, 2012

    I'm not into oddball cars like this for the most part, with the exception being some Nash cars and trucks, and Studebaker trucks. The Frazer is a part of our automotive heritage, though, and I hope the traitor that owns that junkyard doesn't ship it overseas.

    • See 3 previous
    • Moparman426W Moparman426W on Dec 14, 2012

      @ranwhenparked The car would certainly sell if it was advertised. There are alot of people out there that are into the almost forgotten brands, primarily older folks, and they wouldn't care about this car being a sedan. There is an "orphan" car show in this area every year, and the turnout is huge. I have no interest in european cars, they are not my cup of tea. I don't notice them and I wouldn't give it a thought if they were all shipped back to their homeland.

  • Stars9texashockey Stars9texashockey on Dec 10, 2012

    Now I know where Acura got their current beak/shield grill from.

  • AZFelix Hilux technical, preferably with a swivel mount.
  • ToolGuy This is the kind of thing you get when you give people faster internet.
  • ToolGuy North America is already the greatest country on the planet, and I have learned to be careful about what I wish for in terms of making changes. I mean, if Greenland wants to buy JDM vehicles, isn't that for the Danes to decide?
  • ToolGuy Once again my home did not catch on fire and my fire extinguisher(s) stayed in the closet, unused. I guess I threw my money away on fire extinguishers.(And by fire extinguishers I mean nuclear missiles.)
  • Carson D The UAW has succeeded in organizing a US VW plant before. There's a reason they don't teach history in the schools any longer. People wouldn't make the same mistakes.
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