Restless again, in 1939 Frazer went with declining Toledo-based Willys-Overland Motors as president and general manager. in 1925, Frazer played an important role in elevating it to third place in the American industry. When Chrysler turned Maxwell into the Chrysler Corp. From there he joined Walter Chrysler, recently resigned from GM and now rescuing faltering Maxwell Motor Corp. Becoming restless, he moved on to General Motors in 1919 and helped organize General Motors Acceptance Corp., GM’s car-financing wing. He started at the bottom as a Packard mechanic and then tried car sales. Born in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1882, he attended Yale University. Joseph Frazer was an automobile man through and through. During the war, he also had visions of building a low-priced car, and experimented with a new material called fibreglass. Kaiser’s shipbuilding during the Second World War featuring the use of modular construction became legendary for completing vessels in record time. Kaiser Construction grew, eventually amassing a fortune on such projects as the Grand Coulee dam, Boulder (now Hoover) dam and building a third set of locks on the Panama Canal. He began contracting on small road-building jobs and then larger ventures. Henry Kaiser was born in Sprout Brook, New York, in 1882 and headed west as a young man.
The two principals had quite different backgrounds. New names such as Tucker, Davis, Playboy and Kaiser-Frazer vied for a foothold.
Not surprisingly, this attracted several entrepreneurs eager to challenge “Fortress Detroit’s” established companies. It was made to order for postwar automakers. Low Depression-era production, and none during the war, left an old and worn automotive fleet. The Second World War shutdown of American car production from 1942 to 1945 created a major postwar pent-up demand for new cars.
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