Foray into Consumer Products: Automobiles

Henry Kaiser had been infatuated with automobiles his entire adult life.  It was an element of his broader fascination with engineering design of all types including boats, trains, airplanes, and construction machinery.  At one point he owned several patents for large construction equipment that he was among the first to implement in his projects.  By October 1929, when he owned a front-wheel drive 1929 Cord automobile, Kaiser had owned 30 automobiles in the prior 22 years.  One of Kaiser’s favorites was his Marmon “16” sedan, a yellow 16-cylinder engine speedster that he used to commute, at high speeds, from his office in Oakland to the Hoover Dam project in Nevada.  His interest in being an automobile manufacturer someday was revealed when he introduced his first automobile design at the International Auto Show in Berlin on June 8, 1935 while construction was underway at Fleur du Lac.  The time was not yet right for his entry into autos, and his design was never produced.

 

A few years later in 1942, Kaiser established a think tank in Emeryville, California, sometimes know derisively inside the Company as the “hobby lobby” or the “skunk works”, to explore new product designs and satisfy Henry’s engineering and design fantasies.  The lab was run by Howard V. “Lindy” Lindberg, who would later be instrumental in the sale of Fleur du Lac.  Among a host thoughtful and outlandish consumer product designs, the engineers at Kaiser’s lab produced a working prototype of an automobile, the K-85.  This design project would later be a candidate for production by the newly formed Kaiser-Frazer Automobile Company.  But, before the partnership with Joe Frazer, Kaiser commissioned one more auto design project.  Working with Buckminster Fuller, Kaiser built a working prototype of a futuristic, bubble-bodied three-wheel car that would seat 4 people in the front seat with the driver in the middle.  Fuller named his design the “Dymaxion”.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fortunately, the ugly and impractical Dymaxion design was rejected.  However, the two auto projects built within a two-year period, along with an introduction by Bank of America President A. P. Giannini, ultimately led to the Kaiser-Frazer automobile partnership on July 25, 1945.  Bank of America was the largest commercial bank in the world at the time. 

 

Like Henry’s partnership with Howard Hughes on the “spruce goose”, Henry Kaiser and Joe Frazer could not have been more unlike.  Frazer was from a wealthy family, was educated at Hotchkiss and Yale and had spent most of his life as a highly-paid executive at someone else’s company.  But Frazer was also what Kaiser sorely needed for his new venture, an experienced partner who could act as somewhat of a mentor in the auto business. 

 

Henry committed $5 million ($78 million) for his first foray into a consumer-related business far afield from his earlier successes in construction, industrial products, and military equipment.  The naysayers clucked that this would be Henry’s Waterloo; a business field where his cozy relationship with New Deal Government officials would be of no help.  But, by this time, Henry had such an outsized public persona that most “regular Joes” just reminded the naysayers that Henry had never built a dam, a ship, an airplane, or produced steel or aluminum either before showing remarkable success in those fields. 

 

In fact, the initial public stock offering for Kaiser-Frazer Motors was over-subscribed by about 6 times, mostly by retail investors. Not surprisingly with that kind of demand, Kaiser-Frazer stock zoomed from the $10 per share offering price to more than $24 per share before Kaiser-Frazer had ever built a single car.  Unfortunately, this also turned out to be the all-time high price for the stock.

 

Post War demand for all consumer products, especially automobiles, was very strong and Kaiser-Frazer enjoyed the surge as well.  From its Hollywood extravaganza-style initial auto show at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City in early 1946 where eager buyers ordered more than 9,000 Kaiser and Frazer automobiles over a four-day period (the new Company produced two separate models in the early years), to its acquisition of the massive former Ford Motors Willow Run facility in Michigan, Kaiser-Frazer seemed to be off to a great start. 

 

Unfortunately, peak production at Kaiser-Frazer was reached in January of 1948.  At that point, a significant disagreement broke out between auto industry veteran Joe Frazer and neophyte Henry Kaiser.  Frazer believed that the postwar surge was over, that the largest auto manufacturers would capture an increasing market share with their new designs, and that smaller companies like Kaiser-Frazer should retrench and re-capitalize, at least for a few years.  Fazer also faulted Kaiser’s drive for production numbers without regard for costs and the arrogant “we can do anything” attitude among Kaiser’s young California executives.  Kaiser executives considered Frazer to be a stodgy elitist who had enjoyed the eastern establishment Newport, R.I. yachting scene for far too long. 

 

A failed stock market offering on February 4, 1948 should have been a further warning for Kaiser, and the six year long legal battles after that failure drained management effort and financial resources at Kaiser-Frazer.  But, “retrench” was just not a word in Henry’s vocabulary and the two partners decided to part ways.  Edgar Kaiser, age 41, was appointed CEO of Kaiser-Frazer on January 1, 1949.  Kaiser-Frazer never posted a profitable year during Edgar’s reign as CEO.

 

Although business conditions at Kaiser- Frazer were in decline in 1949, in fact, only 85 Kaiser-Frazer autos were produced in November of that year, Henry still clung to his dream of producing a light, low-cost car for the masses.  Despite the fact that a “compact car” was wildly out of synch with the consumer mood for bigger, faster, more luxurious cars, Henry over-rode the pleadings of the car experts from Frazer still in the Company to order the production of the “Henry J.”  Although an initial sales success in 1951, fortunes turned quickly for the Henry J. and by 1952 it was clear that the car was a failure and another huge financial drain on Kaiser Motors.

 

Making one last-gasp effort in the automobile business, Kaiser ordered a beautiful fiberglass-bodied sports car into production in 1952.  Designed by heralded auto designer Howard “Dutch” Darrin, the Kaiser-Darin was clearly a departure from Kaiser’s original vision to produce inexpensive cars for the masses.  Although the design was beautiful and celebrated, and beat the Corvette to the title of first announced fiberglass sports car by two months, the Kaiser-Darrin was expensive and under-powered, and failed to provide the hoped-for carry-through sales to other Kaiser autos.   Production was ended in 1954.

 

Desperate to salvage something for his loyal public shareholders, Kaiser arranged the purchase of Willys-Overland on April 1, 1953, primarily to get the Government contracts for Jeeps, to use the tax loss carry-forwards from Kaiser-Frazer to shield profits at Willys, and to down-size Kaiser-Frazer production to the Toledo, Ohio Willy plants and out of the white elephant Willow Run, Michigan facility.  Kaiser’s decision to manufacture Kaiser autos in Argentina through its IKA subsidiary was another such salvage attempt.  The colorful story of how this partnership with Juan Peron, signed on October 1, 1954, was hatched at Fleur du Lac was recounted in an earlier chapter of this book.

 

The end came for Kaiser-Frazer on January 1, 1955.  Although production of Willys automobiles, now called Kaiser Willys, and Kaiser Manhattan models, with the nameplate “Carabella” in Argentina, continued.  In all, 754,619 automobiles were produced by Kaiser Motors in the 1946 to 1956 period.  In the end, the naysayers were proven to be right.  A combination of naiveté, hubris, capital shortages, steel shortages, and some amount of collusion between eastern steelmakers and the established automobile manufacturers drove the upstart competitor from the market.  The failure of Kaiser-Frazer was a devastating psychological and financial blow for Henry Kaiser personally.  The cumulative total losses at Kaiser-Frazer were $123.1 million ($1.4 billion).  But, perhaps more importantly, Kaiser’s apparent business invincibility had been shattered as well.

 

Homebuilding at Kaiser Community Homes

Henry Kaiser had said on many occasions during the War that he was anxious for an Allied victory so that he could help rebuild the U.S. economy.  He envisioned that a significant part of that rebuilding process would be the production of affordable housing for millions of returning GIs.  With the end of the War, and with the U.S. Government providing attractive home financing through the GI Bill, Kaiser teamed up with Southern California real estate developer Fritz Burns to try to meet the tremendous housing needs.

 

Kaiser’s plan was to make use of the assembly expertise gained in shipbuilding and aircraft manufacture to prefabricate structures so that he could build inexpensive, attractive homes.  Working with Burns, Kaiser’s team designed several floorplans of two and three bedroom homes, of about 1,000 square feet, that could be assembled at the home site from about 40 prefabricated panels.  With this ingenious architectural design, no two homes would look alike although they were constructed of the same 40 panel pieces.  This process would allow workers to assemble about 40 homes per day.  The construction factory for the panel pieces was in Westchester, in Southern California.  Dishwashers, garbage disposals, kitchen and bathroom fixtures as well as other plumbing fixtures were produced in Kaiser’s “Fleetwings” plant in Bristol, Pennsylvania and were included in the house package.  The homes also featured Kaiser aluminum, gypsum and cement products as well.

 

Originally targeted to sell for less than $5,000 ($71,729) including land, actual prices for the first houses sold in 1946 averaged $8,000 ($114,767).  Postwar inflation had pushed prices for the same houses up to an average of $11,000 ($131,062) by 1949 and 1950.  This was the beginning of what economists call “money illusion” in home prices that persists through today.

 

Kaiser’s subdivisions were quite pleasing to the 1940’s eye.  A talented group of architects skillfully camouflaged nearly identical kitchen and bathroom configurations into four basic architectural styles: Cape Cod, Colonial, California, and Contemporary.  By changing the siting on the lot, the locations of porches and garages, and by making use of a broad color palette, the designers were able to offer buyers more than 750 possible home design combinations, which when carefully spread throughout the developments to avoid monotony, gave the tracts a more pleasing organic-growth ambiance.  Winding paved streets, traffic circles, cul-de-sacs, and greenbelt areas increased the attractiveness of Kaiser’s developments.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Unfortunately, earlier highly optimistic plans to produce as many as 100,000 homes per year were never approached.  Kaiser Community Homes produced about 5,000 homes in 1947 and about 2,000 homes in 1948.  The total value of homes produced was about $62 million ($777 million).  It was reported that Kaiser’s total profits on the 7,000+ homes he built was only about $500,000 ($5.8 million), well below his acceptable profit threshold. 

 

What had become obvious in the post war housing boom was that not only was there a large wave of house buyers, but also a large number of house builders in the returning GI crowd back from the War.  The house building industry was becoming highly fragmented with tens of thousands of home builders, not anything like the assembly line business such as automobiles that Kaiser had anticipated.  Kaiser’s strengths were in assembly businesses, not custom or small production-lot businesses.  Realizing that he had misjudged the industry, Kaiser lost interest at that point and turned to areas where he was better equipped to compete.

 

Kaiser Permanente is Born out of Necessity

Born out of necessity in a California desert as a way of providing comprehensive health care to workers on a remote construction project, what later became known as Kaiser Permanente was a grand experiment in medical care coverage in the United States.  The first true implementation of the Kaiser Permanente concept was at Kaiser’s Grand Coulee Dam project in 1938.  Edgar Kaiser the 30-year-old son of Henry and the General Manager of the massive Dam project quickly realized he needed to think outside the box to secure necessary medical coverage for his 100,000 workers.  Fortunately, Henry Kaiser and Dr. Sydney Greenfield had collaborated on a similar medical project earlier, and the three understood what was needed at Grand Coulee. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This was the first offering of prepaid medical coverage for both workers and dependents and was named Kaiser Permanente by Bess Kaiser, after the Permanente Creek that flowed past the Kaiser Permanente Cement plant on Black Mountain in Cupertino, California.

 

Kaiser Permanente became a staple offering at all Kaiser Companies projects.  The greatest growth for Permanente was in providing care for the well over 300,000 workers in the Richmond, California and Portland, Oregon Kaiser shipyards.  Kaiser Permanente was first offered to the public on July 1, 1945.

 

Henry Kaiser abhorred the idea of socialized medicine, but saw the need for broadly available health care at affordable prices.  His answer was a pre-paid medical system with top quality medical professionals managed efficiently and effectively by quality professional managers.  From its public start in 1945, membership in Kaiser Permanente has grown at a compound annual rate of 7% per year for 60 years, from 154,000 members in 1950 to 8.6 million members by 2010. 

 

It certainly wasn’t a smooth ride for Kaiser Permanente as it faced constant opposition by the American Medical Association and other entities.  By staying true to its roots and surviving the greatest threat to its survival in 1955, as depicted in an earlier chapter of this book, the grand experiment has become one of the most important health care delivery programs to emerge in the second half of the 20th Century according to medical experts.  Although never legally a part of Kaiser Industries, Kaiser Permanente has turned out to be Henry Kaiser’s only lasting business legacy.  Still growing strongly, Kaiser Permanente generated $79.7 billion in revenue in 2018.

 

Later Moves into Hospitality, Housing and Media During the Hawaii Years

Henry Kaiser continued his frenetic business pace after moving to Hawaii in 1954, but his focus turned away from industrial businesses toward hospitality, housing and media.  Since our focus in this section is on what Kaiser accomplished during his Fleur du Lac Era, from 1935 to 1962, we present only his early Hawaiian accomplishments in hospitality and media.

 

From the moment he and Ale decided to pull up roots in Oakland and move to Hawaii, Henry was eager to get started on his new business adventures in the Islands.  His immediate focus was Oahu primarily because he knew that Island from previous trips.  When he first walked Waikiki Beach, he imagined opportunity staring him in the face.  Henry had often lamented that he had missed the Florida land boom in his earlier photography business there, and was determined not to miss another opportunity in Hawaii.  He was told by locals that Waikiki Beach was already filled with hotels; he would have to look elsewhere.  Of course, Kaiser saw things differently and immediately went to work.

 

The derelict Niumalu Hotel had been purchased for a very low price by a New York family in the tumultuous period right after the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor.  Very little work had been done on the Hotel since then, but it was a sentimental favorite of visiting serviceman and was very profitable.  Considering purchase of the Hotel, Henry wasn’t after the termite-infested structure, he was after its beach site.  He arranged to purchase the Niumalu for $1.3 million ($13.6 million), and was on his way to creating his new Hawaiian empire. 

 

Kaiser enlisted his old Kaiser Community Homes associate Fritz Burns as his partner on this new project and began creating an elaborate plan that would double the Hotel’s beach space and create a saltwater lagoon, complete with an island.  The heavy engineering work to literally create a beach where there had been rocks required more than 3,000 truck-loads of sand and heavy dredging equipment.  This was all reminiscent of what Kaiser had done to create Fleur du Lac from a marshy wasteland.  In typical Kaiser style, Henry created a very attractive beach setting and his new 100 room hotel, The Hawaiian Village, in 89 days in 1955.

 

Kaiser soon learned that the hotel business, even in paradise, was highly competitive and cutthroat.  The Anglo establishment families on Oahu mistrusted Kaiser, primarily because he moved too fast and was about to upset their monopoly hold on the Island’s economy.  Henry was a tireless promoter of not only his Hotel but the Hawaiian Islands as well.  The Anglo establishment was, no doubt, apoplectic about one of Henry’s more famous promotional stunts.

 

Henry knew that Mike Todd was finishing a movie based on a classic Jules Verne novel “Around the World in 80 Days” starring David Niven, Cantinflas and Shirley MacClaine.  He also knew that his engineers at Kaiser Aluminum had a contract with famous designer Buckminster Fuller to construct Fuller's “geodesic domes” out of aluminum panels.  An idea popped into Henry’s head.  What could be a better way to publicize Hawaii, the Hawaiian Village Hotel, and Kaiser Aluminum, than with a futuristic geodesic dome seemingly right out of the Jules Verne novel in which the world premier of Todd's movie would be shown?  Henry also knew that Todd's new wife Elizabeth Taylor would add plenty of star value to such a special event.  He ordered the construction of a large theater, a geodesic dome, at the Hawaiian Village site.

 

Deadlines were short.  Kaiser engineers quickly prepared the aluminum panels and the procedure for erecting the dome; they estimated the project would take 5 days.  The panels were shipped to Hawaii and the concrete base for the dome was prepared.  Henry was on the mainland, but planned to come back quickly to oversee the construction.  However, because Henry’s engineers knew that he would be much more proud of a construction record than seeing the construction himself, they erected the dome in a little less than 20 hours over a weekend, a record for a dome that size, on January 12, 1957.  They presented it to Henry when he landed from the mainland; he was delighted and commented that “Why those dirty pups, they did it without me”.  The dome was quite a sight: 45 feet in diameter, approximately 50 feet tall, covering an area of about 16,500 square feet, made of gleaming diamond shaped interlocking aluminum panels.  A later description in Popular Mechanics Magazine called the structure a “… a silver patchwork quilt tossed over a giant mushroom”. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Imagine the surprise of the locals who drove by a vacant green field on Kalia Road on Friday, only to see the gleaming theater-sized mushroom on the green lawn on Monday.  To the locals, this was an unmistakable sign that Henry Kaiser had arrived in their Islands, for better or worse. 

 

Henry's idea was a smashing success!  The early November 1957 premier of “Around the World in 80 Days” was a gala event, attended not only by Elizabeth Taylor and Michael Todd, but also by a host of other Hollywood celebrities, all of whom stayed at Henry’s Hawaiian Village Hotel of course.  The movie was a grand creative success as well, garnering 8 Academy Award nominations and winning 5 Awards including "Best Picture", "Best Screenplay", "Best Cinematography", and "Best Music Score."  The movie was also a huge box office success and outclassed all other movies that year including "Giant", "The King and I, and "The Ten Commandments." 

 

The dome at the Hawaiian Village Hotel was the first civilian-constructed geodesic dome in United States Territory (Hawaii would not become a State until 1959).  The landmark dome was later demolished to make room for an expansion of the Hawaiian Village in 1999.     

 

Kaiser quickly adapted to the competitive environment, especially in entertainment and media, which opened up additional new investment opportunities.  He significantly upgraded the talent level on the Island by bringing big name entertainers from the mainland such as Lawrence Welk and the Martin Denny combo to woo visitors to the Hawaiian Village.  He also “discovered” local talent including crooner Alfred Apaka who became very popular not only as the lead artist at the Hawaiian Village, but at the casinos at Lake Tahoe and Las Vegas as well.  Apaka became almost like a son to Henry and spent a lot of time at Fleur du Lac and at the Kaisers’ homes in Hawaii and elsewhere. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Although both Ale and Henry enjoyed most aspects of the hotel business, Ale especially liked hobnobbing with the celebrity guests, Henry found the work ethic in the industry severely lacking.  He later turned over daily operation of the Hawaiian Village to Western International, before selling the Hotel Complex to Conrad Hilton in 1961, to turn his attention to media and residential development.

 

In typical Kaiser fashion, Henry jumped into the media world with both feet.  He viewed media of all types as perfect vehicles to show the world how beautiful Hawaii was and how useful all his consumer products were.  He quickly acquired television and radio stations in Hawaii, Boston, Detroit, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles.  His first major national media venture was his decision to produce the Kaiser Aluminum Hour television series that debuted on NBC Network on the mainland on July 3, 1956.  His one hour television dramas ran for one year from July 1956 to June 18, 1957.  The series was a very high budget production featuring rising stars and Kaiser Aluminum commercials, some narrated by Henry Kaiser himself. 

 

Paul Newman starred in the first telecast, “Army Game”, and other rising stars included Ralph Bellamy, Robert Culp, Kim Hunter, William Shatner, Forrest Tucker, Dennis Hopper, and Natalie Wood.  Many of these stars visited Fleur du Lac either before or after their debuts on Kaiser Aluminum Hour.

 

Kaiser’s other major venture into network television was his production of the “Maverick” weekly series starring James Garner, Jack Kelly, Roger Moore, Robert Colbert, and Diane Brewster.  Kaiser spent $7 million ($73 million) backing the series that ran for 5 seasons, 124 episodes in the September 1957 to July 1962 time period, and spent its early years at the top of television ratings.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Although Henry was spending most of his time in Hawaii by 1958, he was very much involved in the planning and construction of the new Kaiser Industries Headquarters buildings in Oakland.  The 28-story main building at 300 Lakeside Drive on Lake Merritt was an architectural masterpiece and a very welcome addition to the Oakland skyline.  The buildings were an appropriate symbol of Kaiser Industries at its peak of power and housed all of Kaiser’s 4,500 person headquarters staff.  The buildings cost approximately $45 million ($432 million), were completed on March 16, 1958 and fully opened in 1960.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kaiser’s last noteworthy business effort during the Fleur du Lac era was his largest real estate undertaking in Hawaii.  On March 27, 1961, Kaiser signed a long-term land lease with the Bishop Trust to allow him to create the real estate development he named Hawaii Kai.  By the time he began this development, he had started 29 companies in Hawaii, but this was to be his signature project.  Hawaii Kai was Hawaii’s first planned community and was designed to include both residential and commercial properties. 

 

He prepared the land on the east end of Oahu by dredging the Kuapa Pond to create canals that could allow boats among the houses in the development.  He began by building the homes himself, but found that buyers preferred to choose from local and mainland homebuilders that were more familiar to them.  When he opened up the project to outside builders, the homes sold very well.  There were many cynics, they called Hawaii Kai “Kaiser’s Folly”, but what Kaiser project didn’t have cynics?  In the end, Kaiser did not live to see Hawaii Kai fully developed.  He probably would have approved of what he had created, although the evidence shows that he did not make very much money from the development.

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But Not All Dreams Come True

Henry Kaiser was an idea machine.  His personal goal was to generate 20 new ideas per day; he then had a team of staffers whose jobs were to follow up on each one and report back to the “Boss”.  Anyone generating that many raw ideas is sure to create a lot of dead-ends.  But Henry’s staffers knew that the Boss remembered his ideas and would follow up with them if he had not heard any progress reports.  We have spent most of the past pages detailing Henry’s spectacular business successes, but not all his ideas succeeded.  We will now take a look at a few of Henry’s dreams that did not come true.

 

Kaiser’s research and development lab in Emeryville, headed by H. V. Lindberg, tested an endless stream of Henry’s ideas including dishwashers, air conditioners, washers, dryers, lawn mowers, vacuum cleaners, and as we have learned, aluminum water skis.  The dishwasher story is particularly interesting.  Henry knew that anyone could make a box where dirty dishes were sprayed by a nozzle, then allowed to dry.  But he reasoned that the stream of water from a nozzle was not sufficiently strong to clean really dirty dishes.  What was needed was a stronger stream of water in both velocity and volume.  So, instead of having stationary dishes sprayed by a moving nozzle, why not have the water source be stationary, and much higher volume, but have the dishes move past the water source in a fast-spinning drum?  It looked good on paper, but when the prototype was built and a set of dirty dishes loaded, what was unloaded was a pile of clean pieces of the dishes loaded.  The simple truth is that despite Kaiser’s continuing interest in making the average family’s life easier with his consumer products, he never achieved the success in consumer-oriented products that he did in industrial products.

 

Henry Kaiser wanted to be known as the “Henry Ford of Housing”.  He wanted to manufacture inexpensive houses, assembly-line style, and then construct them in attractive well-designed neighborhoods.  Most of all, he wanted the price of these houses to be within the reach of any working man.  Henry often spoke of producing 10,000 houses per month.  Once again, the reality was that postwar home buyers were not interested in prefab houses, no matter how well designed.  Housing turned out to be a very fractured market with tens of thousands of individual homebuilders as competitors.  Henry had no particular strengths in that sort of market and the potential profits did not meet his expectations.  As a result, his Kaiser Community Homes built less than 10,000 homes total over a two-year period and Henry exited the business.

 

Henry’s successes in shipbuilding led him to believe that he could be successful building “flying boats”, massive cargo airplanes that could fly over the heads of menacing German submarines.  He spoke of producing 5,000, then 500 such flying boats.  His partnership with Howard Hughes produced one such airplane, the “spruce goose” long after the War was over.

 

Henry’s other big idea in airplanes was that postwar America needed “personal airplanes” that the average guy could learn to fly quickly in order to facilitate transportation across the broad expanses of the U.S.  But the personal airplanes would not be useful without six thousand airports across the United States to accommodate the large volume of air traffic Henry contemplated. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

He planned to build both the personal airplanes and the six thousand airports.  His expansive ideas failed to garner any Government interest or support.

 

Another creative transportation idea was the “Kaiser Superbus”. “The bus of the future” was announced in the Oakland Tribune on August 1, 1946.  Constructed of lightweight magnesium and aluminum at Kaiser’s Permanente Metals facility, the articulated bus was 60 feet long, could accommodate 63 passengers, required a driver and a co-operator, and contained many luxury fittings including a toilet.  This was the first articulated bus created for regular passenger service and was to be operated by the Santa Fe Trailways (later Continental Trailways) Company.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Although this prototype entered regular service between Los Angeles and San Francisco through 1951, Henry’s interest had shifted to his new automobile company and the project lost traction.

 

Of course, Henry’s largest and most traumatic failure was Kaiser-Frazer Motors.  This was actually a life-long dream for Henry that he finally had the financial capacity to launch.  As with other Kaiser products, the idea was to build an attractive and affordable family car.  He had the perfect postwar consumer economy as a wind to his back, solid and attractive car designs and Edgar Kaiser running the show for him.  It all looked so promising at first, but a host of factors, including hubris and management mistakes, ultimately led to the closure of Kaiser-Frazer in 1955.  The failure was a serious financial and emotional blow for Henry.  His pride and his aura of business infallibility had been seriously dented.  It is one thing to break a few dishes in a dishwasher design mistake; it is quite another matter to lose hundreds of millions of shareholder and dealer dollars.  It is likely that Henry never fully recovered from that trauma.

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