Junkyard Find: Horizon Blue 1949 Kaiser Special

by Murilee Martin

Published: August 24th, 2012

junkyard find horizon blue 1949 kaiser special

Since I’m now shopping for some sort of postwar American sedan for a foolish road-racer project and the ’51 Nash Airflyte in the Brain-Melting Colorado Yard isn’t for sale, I decided to pay more attention to the large selection of Kaiser-Frazer products parked nearby. How about a car with an optional factory color so impressive that the manufacturer installed badges with that color’s name on the fenders?

The Colorado sun and weather isn’t kind to vintage car paint, so the Horizon Blue color is no longer visible. The gold-tone emblems remain, though.

The Kaiser buffalo was one of the better symbols used on American cars.

Here’s an engine that was used in everything from boats to generators to farm equipment to cars built by dozens of manufacturers: the Continental Red Seal 226-cubic-inch flathead six. While Ford, GM, and Chrysler were developing modern overhead-valve V8s and preparing to crush the competition like annoying insects, Kaiser had to stick with this antiquated-but-reliable power plant.

This car is a bit heavy for what I had in mind, so I passed on it. I was, however, tempted to make an offer on this beautifully weathered 1965 license plate.

#1940s #1949 #1949Kaiser #Colorado #DownOnTheJunkyard #Junkyard #JunkyardFind #Kaiser

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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2 of 14 comments

Ciddyguy on Aug 24, 2012

A very cool find there MM. I love that glossy sky blue paint that many cars used back in the day, sadly hardly used today though, and if you get a light blue, it's that nondescript light metallic blue that I've never cared too much for. That said, this old Kaiser looks to be fairly complete, though rough and very much sun blasted. Too bad you didn't get much of the interior this time around.

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Darkhorse on Aug 26, 2012

It would be great if you could find a Henry J!

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Philip I love seeing these stories regarding concepts that I have vague memories of from collector magazines, books, etc (usually by the esteemed Richard Langworth who I credit for most of my car history knowledge!!!). On a tangent here, I remember reading Lee Iacocca's autobiography in the late 1980s, and being impressed, though on a second reading, my older and self realized why Henry Ford II must have found him irritating. He took credit for and boasted about everything successful being his alone, and sidestepped anything that was unsuccessful. Although a very interesting about some of the history of the US car industry from the 1950s through the 1980s, one needs to remind oneself of the subjective recounting in this book. Iacocca mentioned Henry II's motto "Never complain; never explain" which is basically the M.O. of the Royal Family, so few heard his side of the story. I first began to question Iacocca's rationale when he calls himself "The Father of the Mustang". He even said how so many people have taken credit for the Mustang that he would hate to be seen in public with the mother. To me, much of the Mustang's success needs to be credited to the DESIGNER Joe Oros. If the car did not have that iconic appearance, it wouldn't have become an icon. Of course accounting (making it affordable), marketing (identifying and understanding the car's market) and engineering (building a car from a Falcon base to meet the cost and marketing goals) were also instrumental, as well as Iacocca's leadership....but truth be told, I don't give him much credit at all. If he did it all, it would have looked as dowdy as a 1980s K-car. He simply did not grasp car style and design like a Bill Mitchell or John Delorean at GM. Hell, in the same book he claims credit for the Brougham era four-door Thunderbird with landau bars (ugh) and putting a "Rolls-Royce grille" on the Continental Mark III. Interesting ideas, but made the cars look chintzy, old-fashioned and pretentious. Dean Martin found them cool as "Matt Helm" in the late 1960s, but he was already well into middle age by then. It's hard not to laugh at these cartoon vehicles.