Baby Studebaker?

"HFV has no HFV. But somehow has 2 motorcycles" (hondasfordsvolvo) 02/23/2015 at 00:17 • Filed to: None

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I just found a car I'd never heard of on CL

a 1951 Henry J. It looks a bit like a miniature Studi. except the bullet nose turned into a fin.

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TheHondaBro > HFV has no HFV. But somehow has 2 motorcycles 02/23/2015 at 00:26

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The want... Isn't strong.

camaroboy68ss > HFV has no HFV. But somehow has 2 motorcycles 02/23/2015 at 00:33

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ah the Henry J, great base for drag cars. not really a baby stude, there was a closer car to the Henry J, the Allstate, which was a Henry J with different badging and grille. You could actually order the Allstate through the Sears catalogue.

HFV has no HFV. But somehow has 2 motorcycles > TheHondaBro 02/23/2015 at 00:40

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but it's Smart, Though, and Thrifty.

ranwhenparked > HFV has no HFV. But somehow has 2 motorcycles 02/23/2015 at 00:52

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The Henry J was basically done to both fulfill Henry J. Kaiser's dream of becoming the new Henry Ford by selling an affordable people's car and to fulfill Kaiser-Frazer's obligations to the US government (they got a low cost lease on their plant and a startup loan based on a business plan that included a promise to build a cheap economy car, which sounded a lot better to politicians than the medium to upper medium priced big sedans they wound up building).

Howard Darrin wanted to cut down their big cars to compact size to save money, but Kaiser bought a dedicated small car design from American Metal Products that was poorly engineered and nowhere near production ready, and it wound up costing them even more to get it into production than just cutting down their existing models.

As it was, the Henry J was the cheapest new car in America when it debuted, but just barely. A full-size entry Chevy was only slightly more expensive, and Kaiser only got the Henry J's price down that far by deleting the glove box and external trunk access and covering the seats in plastic-coated paper. And they still lost money on it.

lone_liberal > HFV has no HFV. But somehow has 2 motorcycles 02/23/2015 at 00:54

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The Henry J. being named after Henry J. Kaiser, of course. They are more closely tied to what eventually became AMC, through Jeep, than Studebaker. Here's a fact that only interests me, my dad used to work for Kaiser Aluminum driving trucks loaded with molten aluminum from a smelter to a rolling mill.

MINISQL > HFV has no HFV. But somehow has 2 motorcycles 02/23/2015 at 02:57

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I think there was a story on Henry J. Kaiser (Kaiser Aluminum, Kaiser-Permanente, etc.) on here just a week or two ago..

HFV has no HFV. But somehow has 2 motorcycles > MINISQL 02/23/2015 at 12:41

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hmm.