A Beddian Birthday occurs when the age a person is turning, is the same number as the last two digits of their birth year. The Beddian birthday is named for NYC firefighter Bobby Beddia who noted this coincidence.So yesterday I did something suited to a man my age. Friday is my "day off," and after going out to lunch and then taking advantage of the "going out of business" sale at the Bergner's in Sheridan Village (everything is 50% off; last week it was 40%, so we're getting closer) to get some towels, I headed over to the local Ford dealer to sit in a new Mustang.
More photos from the KFOCI Midwest Division Meet at the Stony Creek Inn in East Peoria. Here's what greeted me when I stopped by yesterday afternoon. Clicking on any of the photos will take you to a larger image.
This is a '47 Frazer, the first year for the Kaiser and Frazer automobiles. It was named after Joe Frazer, the long-time automobile man who partnered with industrialist Henry Kaiser to take on the Big Three (GM, Ford, and Chrysler) after the Second World War. The first Frazers were officially manufactured by the Graham-Paige Motors, a pre-war independent headed by Frazer that just barely survived the Depression. The first generation Kaisers were basically stripped Frazers.
Soon after production of the Kaiser and Frazer began, GP quickly sold out the car part of its business, went into real estate, and a decade later changed its name to the Madison Square Garden Corporation. This is a '49 Frazer, a very nice face-lift of the '47-'48 models. But by then the Big Three had post-war designs, meaning KF lost its uniqueness in the market. Soon Mr. Frazer was being eased out of the company by Kaiser people.
The '51 Frazers were the end of the line. Actually, they never would have been made -- Joe Frazer was out of the company by then -- except KF had manufactured way too many 1950 cars that didn't sell. This face-lift was to use up those extra cars, and it really looks nice.
My grandfather owned a Frazer for a while, though that was before I was around. I'm not sure which of these three it would have been.
If I ever buy a Kaiser, it is more likely to be more like this '53 Manhattan. A very handsome car, not as rare as the '54-'55, and there seem to be decent ones close to my price range.
After domestic production ceased, Kaiser-Willys manufactured the Kaiser in Argentina from 1958-62 as the Kaiser Carabella. This 1960 model was used for engineering purposes as the Kaiser plant in Toledo, Ohio, which explains how it is one of only a dozen or so Carabellas in the US.
Henry J. Kaiser went into the auto business after World War Two with the goal of building a "peoples' car." The closest he came to that was the compact Henry J. This one actually looks pretty nice, but it was the wrong car at the wrong time for the wrong price. There are many reasons Kaiser-Frazer ultimately failed as a make, and the Henry J's draining of resources is near the top of the list.
The first part of selling a car is getting a buyer in the showroom. Nothing does that better that a sexy "sports car." Even today, folks head to the Chevy dealer to look at a Corvette. Very few will even consider actually buying one, but some will come home in a new Impala or a Cruze. The 2-seater Kaiser Darrin (designed by and named after Dutch Darrin, the chief designer of the full-sized Kaisers and Frazers) is a beautiful fibreglass body on a Henry J frame. The doors actually slide into the front fenders! 435 were built, and the KFOCI registry shows just over 400 of them still exist. Too bad it's not top-down weather.
Kaiser purchased Willys in '53, but the car was probably already on its last legs. Jeeps were selling well; who needed this? This is a '55 Custom, the last year for the domestic Willys automobile. Her owner, Lew Retzer (one of The Sources if you want to know something about the post-war Willys) and I had a really nice conversation about this and other cars he's owned -- exactly the kind of thing old car club meets are for.
As I was walking to my car in the lot of the Stony Creek Inn, this '53 Manhattan was driving in. She sounded as smooth as she looks. 
A grayish old car on a grayish central Illinois day? Yet even so, this '55 Kaiser Manhattan is simply stunning to view. 
Wouldn't she look just fab in front of Zion's Parsonage? Okay, in my mind I see it on the driveway of the Canoga Park home I grew up in. Either way, though, one like this is likely well beyond Pastor Zip's reach. After all, only 226 of these four-door sedans were made for sale in the US, the Kaiser's last model year as a domestic auto make. Another 1000 or so were exported to Argentina.
But look at those wire wheels. (I was told the owner takes them off for the winter and stores them inside.) Or the "Safety-Glo" taillights -- which look even bolder in the view below. To my eye, at least, the only "dated" items on the Kaiser are the separate bumpers and the wide-white walls. Why under the hood is a supercharged six cylinder engine. Not bad for a 55-year-old car, eh? 
There are many reasons why this was the end of the line for Kaiser, many examined in Richard M. Langworth's excellent (but out-of-print) book, The Last Onslaught on Detroit. But what an end result.
This was my first car, a 1978 Renault 5 GTL DeLuxe (aka a LeCar) that I bought new for $4700 in the summer of 1979. I loved that car until some unlicensed kid turned in front of me at an Inglewood intersection in May 1986 and, unable to stop quickly enough, that ended my R5's life.The Return Of The DeLoreanGood luck, Stephen, with your continuing enterprise. And good fortune with the "new" DeLorean.
Steven Chupnick
Huey Lewis sang about it, Doc Brown cooked it up on the silver screen, and Marty McFly blazed in and out of decades with it. I'm talking about the DeLorean. The stainless steel car that is better known in movies than on the streets. Well this week, Steven Chupnick heads Over The Edge to tell us the story of this 1980's flash in the pan and its amazing return. So hold on to your Calvin Kleins for what's old is shiny and new again. – John Davis
It was one of the cars that defined the 1980's: the image of it sticks in your head, brimming with gadgets, gizmos and flux capacitors...
The DeLorean was the car that took Marty McFly "Back to the Future." Now, the past is the future.
But it was way before the movie franchise when John DeLorean began the DeLorean Motor Company, better known as DMC. The man behind Pontiac's GTO series had a much bigger vision after leaving General Motors.
In the 1970's, he developed the prototype which would then become one of the world's most famous vehicles. It even turned up right here on MotorWeek back in 1982.
John DeLorean built his facilities in Northern Ireland and his dream was under way. But just as the dream of designing his own car was beginning, it came crashing down hard. Not long into the start of production, the British Government stopped funding the car. John ran out of money, allegations of drug deals entered the picture, and his life quickly spiraled downward. It was about that same time Stephen Wynne crossed the pond to the states. A trade mechanic, whose love of the DeLorean has now grown into his career.
STEPHEN WYNNE, PRESIDENT & CEO, DELOREAN MOTOR COMPANY: We had a few customers that had DeLoreans and they couldn't get satisfactory service. And the dealers were all kind of iffy because they were going out of business. We started working on them and it seemed easy to work on them.
The work was easy because there was still a ton of product. As the doors on the Ireland factory closed in 1983, the workers there continued to press out thousands more parts. So was it really the end of the dream? About ten years later, Stephen bought the company name, as well as all the remaining DMC parts, moved to their facility in Houston, Texas, and in 2009, he's bringing the DeLorean back to the road.
WYNNE: For us to have this warehouse of the NOS inventory is just priceless for what we're doing today to have this kind of in-depth quality and quantity of parts.
The NOS inventory, or new old stock, is what is helping Stephen and his right hand man, James Espey reinvent the brand.
JAMES ESPEY, VICE PRESIDENT, DELOREAN MOTOR COMPANY: I don't think Stephen and I are creating the future as much as we're keeping the past alive.
And it's John's original vision that keeps them going as well.
ESPEY: There's not a day that goes by that the thought of John doesn't cross my mind. He wanted to create a car that was something ethical, and by sheer virtue of the fact that so many of the cars are still around here 25 years later, it's a pretty good testament to the longevity of the car.
The new DMC facility is 40 thousand square feet, 75 percent of it is warehouse. That's where Leif Montin comes into play.
The parts and inventory supervisor has been working for the DeLorean Motor Company since 1979, back in Ireland and then opening up the original parts store in Irvine, California.
The memories he has of John and the old crew are endless, but his best is still being around these cars.
LEIF MONTIN, PARTS/INVENTORY SUPERVISOR, DELOREAN MOTOR COMPANY: It was always my interest to make sure that the people that bought this car should have an opportunity to keep it running. So when DeLorean folded and Consolidated International bought the assets, so to say, they bought me too.
The other side of the building is the workshop for restoring and repairing the DeLorean. Don't think these DeLoreans are like the older versions. They're putting all kinds of new toys in there, including a touch screen fold-out panel, rear-view camera and a built-in navigation system. Is Stephen Wynne really Doc Brown?
WYNNE: Doc Brown did all the mad scientist stuff; I'd rather be the one who keeps it a little bit more on the ground.
So no need to worry about getting these things up to 88 miles-an-hour, cause... "Roads? Where we're going, we don't need roads..."
Click on the photo for a larger view.
