It was designed and engineered by Blake Larson whose life long desire to produce a practical concept car resulted in this unique design, in
which he was also hands on in the construction.
His concept was to give the driver as much vision as possible and he therefore put the driver seat in the middle with center steering and two full car width seats behind the driver and a fully glassed enclosed area front and back
The only truly out-of-the-box design in the Kaiser Aluminum designs by Miller http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2009/07/prototype-kaisers-that-never-made-it.html was the Waimea, which is credited to a designer named Rhys Miller.
It's not called a "van," but it's fair to describe the Waimea as a minivan cut down to station wagon height.
Kaiser's passenger cars died in 1955, but Kaiser had merged with Willys Overland in 1953, and Willys (Kaiser Jeep, after 1963) continued to build Jeep vehicles until 1970, when Edgar Kaiser sold out to AMC.
His concept was to give the driver as much vision as possible and he therefore put the driver seat in the middle with center steering and two full car width seats behind the driver and a fully glassed enclosed area front and back
The only truly out-of-the-box design in the Kaiser Aluminum designs by Miller http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2009/07/prototype-kaisers-that-never-made-it.html was the Waimea, which is credited to a designer named Rhys Miller.
It's not called a "van," but it's fair to describe the Waimea as a minivan cut down to station wagon height.
Kaiser's passenger cars died in 1955, but Kaiser had merged with Willys Overland in 1953, and Willys (Kaiser Jeep, after 1963) continued to build Jeep vehicles until 1970, when Edgar Kaiser sold out to AMC.
Kaiser is famous for never missing an opportunity to miss an opportunity. The Kaisers (Henry and Edgar) were egotistical twits who refused to listen to automotove people. They received advice on the power plants, as better choices were available, but suggestions to improve both the 4 and 6's were never allowed. Few people know some 54 Kaisers were made with Oldsmobile V-8s and were stunning performers. When Ed Kaiser found out he had a tantrum and ordered all those cars destroyed. The company didn't have to die, it was murdered by the Kaisers.
http://www.carlustblog.com/2010/05/1958-kaiser-waimea-minivan.html
Wayne Carini bought it a couple years ago. You can see that is has '65 Pontiac headlights, '63 GP parking lamps, and '57 Chevy bumper rubber tips
The head light are not 1965 Pontiac. They are 1963 Pontiac.
ReplyDeleteCorrect me if Im wrong, but the 1954 year is wrong. Corvairs were made from 1959-1960 to 1970.
ReplyDeleteThe 1954 year of what? Where are you reading anything about a 1954 Chevrolet Corvair? And if you are, what makes you think this was created earlier than the year 1959?
DeleteI am curious. How is Rhys Miller attributed to this design? I cannot find any mention of him being related to Frank Hershey & Associates. His obituary cites work on the original Thunderbird (he is actually mentioned as a player on the '56-57 update), Nash Metropolitan (no record of this; it was Flajole (concept NXI, and "Pinin" Farina credited with the Metro.) As far as I can see, there is no attribution on the Kaiser aluminum drawing, unless it's well-hidden. He doesn't even have a Wikipedia citation that I can find, which is unusual in this day and age for someone with such a purported CV.
ReplyDeletethe Waimea is credited to a designer named Rhys Miller.
DeleteI try to find info every day, and frequently find that no one has yet added it to Wikipedia. I think it's because Wiki is volunteer based for adding info to it's database, it's not curated for omniscience
I don't have time to look into right now, and, it's not my homework. It was true when I wrote it, or I wouldn't have bothered taking the time to type that out.
DeleteRhys Miller was commissioned to illustrate several all aluminum cars for Kaiser Aluminum. https://www.lanemotormuseum.org/collection/cars/item/futura-waimea-1961
DeleteAnd, again, just curious...was it Henry Lawson, or Blake Lawson? Both names appear in the article. "...built by Henry Lawson..." and later "...designed and engineered by Blake Larson..." Brothers? Father and son? Same person?
ReplyDeleteAnd FYI, it has a 108" wheelbase making it a Lakewood chassis, not a Greenbrier.
and again, it's not my homework. I will gladly correct what I've posted, if you do the research and send me the links to some authoritative source that spells it out differently. But until then, whatever source I found and cited still stands as accurate and reliable.
DeleteJust don't mistake me for someone that is going to dig into this matter for you, I've got too many other things to do, AND I am already convinced that what I posted was not only correct, but as fully posted as I was interested in doing when I already took the time to research it and post as thorough a article on the matter as I felt necessary 7 years ago
Henry "Hank" Larson hand-built the Futura in his home in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Blake Larson is his son and had been the steward of the car before it changed hands.
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ReplyDeleteWe have both a Loadside and a Lakewood in the collection, and the wheelbase matches that of the Lakewood at 108"; any Corvair book can confirm that. I know it's not your "Homework", we're not being graded on our contributions to automotive history. If it weren't for valuable posts like yours on the truly obscure cars of our past, there would be no starting point for furthering our understanding.
ReplyDeleteAs a museum professional, though, I really enjoy digging into a car's past to try to get to the real story. So many cars, like the Martin aero cars of the '30s-50s, have been misrepresented for so long that correcting "authorities" is almost impossible - even when presented with period newspaper articles and typed, signed letters from Mr. Martin himself. A single magazine interview given in the 1980s has led to so much disinformation...
I really appreciate the work you've already done, and hoped that you would see my comments as a positive contribution with the goal of uncovering even more about the Futura Waimea. Sorry if I came across as confrontational - the internet has a way of doing that, I suppose. Like you, I am just trying to share information.
We do know that Henry Larson, not Blake, built it ca. 1995, using a Lakewood wagon as the starting point. This from an article published in Collectible Automobile, August 2000.