Tag: 1953

1953 Cadillac Fleetwood Sixty Special: Long, Low and Lovely!

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I’ve always had a thing for early ’50s Cadillacs. When I was in second grade or so, my grandparents got me a hardcover “coffee table” type book called Decade of Dazzle. It was a book on Fifties cars, and one of the featured cars was the 1953 Cadillac Eldorado. Looking supreme in white over red leather, it left an impression on me. And later that same year, out on a trip to the Jewel-Osco with my Aunt Candy, I got a 1/43 scale 1952 Cadillac Series 62 sedan in pink and white. I still have it.

Sixty Special

Of course, the 1953 Cadillac was the final iteration of the all-new postwar 1948 Cadillac. It inaugurated the classic Cadillac fishtail fin, and in 1949, the small block V8. In 1950 it was totally restyled, though it still bore a close resemblance to the 1948-49 model.

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Henry J 1

1953 Henry J Corsair de Luxe: Kaiser’s Baby

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Note: It has come to my attention via my network of loyal spies (they have a fleet of Lincoln Town Cars and Cadillac Broughams) that a certain aging, angry blogger likes to give the impression that I continue to write for his questionable, increasingly histrionic site by re-running stuff of mine that I wrote years ago. I do not. I have, in fact, had nothing to do with a certain website since the end of The Year Of Our Lord 2014. Yet he persists, probably due to laziness and apathy. So I believe I will be revising and posting some of those right here on Riverside Green. Let’s begin! -TK

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1951 was the year Kaiser-Frazer should have made it. A thoroughly restyled–and beautiful–Kaiser, a facelifted swan-song Frazer, and the all-new compact Henry J meant that Kaiser had spent ample time and money in rejuvenating their lineup. Never again would the company have such a modern and diverse lineup. Unfortunately, Henry Kaiser’s ego – “The Kaisers NEVER retrench!” – was a favorite saying of Mr. Kaiser’s, the lack of a V8 option when V8s were all the rage, and other myriad factors made 1951 the beginning of the end for K-F in the U.S.

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