For those who wish their Kaiser Manhattan to have a bit more presence, IKA (Kaiser Industries Argentina) built just the ticket for you; the ‘Carabela’ Limousine.
The arrival of Kaiser Industries to Argentina was a momentous occassion, as it officially made the South American nation first in automotive production in the region. The Manhattan, rechristened as ‘Carabela’ for Argentina, was among the factory’s early products and built from 1958 to 1962.
With pleasantries being common between IKA’s management and Argentina’s officials, a handful of factory built limousines were given away, most notably to Argentinian president Arturo Frondizi. At least one survives to this day, and is often displayed in local car gatherings.
Here’s one more shot of the ‘Carabela’ limousine, courtesy of Argentina’s National Archives. IKA’s exploits as a South American player were quite the rollercoaster, with an unlikely cast of actors mixed in, such as Alfa and Renault. Though for the time being that’s a soap opera (say telenovela!) we will deal with some other time.
Not that IKA hasn’t been partially covered at CC before, as its most notorious chapter got Paul’s attention a while back: the Rambler based -and Pininfarina styled- IKA Torino.
Curbside Classic: 1971 Ika Torino TS – The Legendary Rambler European South American
Wow! Love the OTT style loaded with chrome. Limo makes it even better. Too bad Kaiser Fraser, like other independents didn’t survive in USA.
WOW! What a way to be a bigshot in Argentina! Love the conversion. All one needs is the money to bring one here, restore it, add electric windows and A/C and drive around town. Or, drop off the grandchildren at school. Show up at a family function. This is a screech.
Thanks for this beauty, style was not missed by Kaiser.
Impressive. The 226 flathead six had its work cut out for it.
I wonder if it is supercharged.
The 3 Carabelas I’ve seen were not supercharged, but let’s hope the limousines were equipped with one, as the IKA sedans were very, very slow.
Really, unless they’re pulling mountain passes, they should be fine. Owner of two 54 Kaisers with no super charger
Good find. Kaiser Manhattans in general were attractive, stylish and well-built automobiles.
However, its archaic Continental six doomed it to failure. It just couldn’t compete with other upper medium makes of the day. If this had an Olds like V-8 it would have been really desirable. Maybe not enough to withstand the price wars of 1954-55, but it would have had a fighting chance.
Of all things, KF had a pending deal to buy the Rocket V-8. According to insiders, Oldsmobile installed a rocket into a Kaiser and discovered that car performed and handled way better than the Oldsmobile, so Olds jumped the price up to so high an amount that the deal fell through. KF also was engineering their own V-8, there are pictures, but time and money ran out, so that never came to be.
The number one reason for considering the OLDS V8 was because Kaiser was already using the Hydramatic transmission, and the Olds engine was small enough to fit with little modifications.
I had heard from a K-F collector about 40 years ago that K-F wanted the Packard Clipper 320 V8, but it was too expensive. Had they been able to keep going until the end of 1956, They could have bought the rights to all the Packard engines for probably close to scrap value.
Around the same time I heard about that possibility, I owned quite a few V8 Packard cars and even had an extra Packard V8 engine & Ultramatic transmission sitting in the warehouse. I also had a 1954 Kaiser Manhattan with a locked engine from sitting in a garage 25+ years. So I gave it some serious thought and did the measurements. The engine would have fit with minor motor mount changes, but if I remember, the frame crossmember for the rear trans mount would require a lot of re-work.
I was able to get the rings unstuck on the Kaiser’s Continental 6, so I never went forward with a changeover. That car only had about 15,000 miles on it, and I loved driving it locally, but on the interstates the car was a slug that struggled to keep up with traffic.
Bill, I’ve driven a stock Kaiser with Hydramatic across two states one evening, with the speedometer needle around the 100 mark, probably only doing 85-90 considering speedometer error. Had to get back to Colorado for work. That was decades ago when I was a young crazy guy. Your Kaiser that was a slug either had a worn out engine or was in the state of a very bad tune.
I’ve always loved the last Kaiser. IKA minimized difficult metalforming tasks while preserving the beauty. Instead of lengthening or moving the pretty dip, they just extruded the straight part of the roof contour.
I’ve always thought the Kaiser to be an attractive and unique car. The greenhouse arch on the standard sedan is pretty dramatic, this limo design tones it down a bit – very attractively.
While I wouldn’t change the arch on the standard sedan, I’d do away with the widow’s peak treatment above the windshield, and also the rear window on the standard sedan. Just a bit too much. The limo rear window treatment works fantastically on this car.
I see a possible source of inspiration for the 1958 Cadillac Sixty-Special Fleetwood in this car. The rear quarter on the Cadillac is very similar to what was done on this Kaiser.
The opened up rear window on normal Manhattans is pretty awesome, but they might have lost the widow’s peak while they were at it. The front one too. The 1950’s was a very conformist period and they didn’t need any extra weirdness and there were plenty already. They did tout having the most square inches of window area in 1954.
My ten car imaginary dream garage might have one (but with all the mod cons). The last facelift ones are truly extraordinary.
Of course they were in a hopeless situation without a V8 anyway. Or AC or power steering. As has been written many times before the whole pointless Henry J thing just might have been a really terrible idea not even counting how bad the styling was.
Oops. (Once again I sure wish there was an Edit function here. I seem to remember it in the distant past.)
They did offer power steering starting in 1953. Sounds like maybe a Chrysler unit?
Where did you find this pic? Might there be a bigger version of it? This one is much too small to read.
Michael, I’ve read this Kaiser advertisement, they were demonstrating the power steering. It was a Kaiser only unit, a hydraulic ram fed by a power steering pump on the engine. Chryslers this era used an integral power steering with the steering gear.
It does have presence, enough for two cars.
the later Kaisers were really beautiful cars, and they had very nice interiors as well.
The tall roof usually fights with the car’s otherwise sleek design, but it really works on this limo. I like it.
Do any of the Carabela limos survive?
There’s at least still one, in gold, making the rounds in Argentina’s car meets.
The two photos highIight (for me anyway) how the camera angle really influences the aesthetics of a car. The lead (lede?) photo’s low angle and 3/4 front view make it look hideous, to me. The second photo taken more from above really helps the greenhouse-to-belt line proportions. In this case, it may look better from the rear but it also looks better from a higher viewpoint. Sure, it may look dramatic if the photographer gets down low, but most of us look at cars from 5-6 feet or 1.5-1.8 meters off the ground.
As someone who has collected dozens of rare and unusual limousines beginning in 1975 with my 1955 Imperial Crown limousine, and having owned an example of my favorite Kaiser [1954 Manhattan], I have at times imagined what a ’54 Manhattan limo would look like. Now to my delight, I have photos!
It appears IKA did the same basic thing as Henney did in creating the 1953-54 Packard limousines; Henney took a Patrician sedan, stretched the frame, made new [squared] rear doors and used a 2-door Packard Clipper rear body shell. IKA did it one better by changing the rear window, something that Henney didn’t do, and it was very apparent to the public who noticed that cheaper Clipper rear body. That said, Derham in PA did convert at least one 1954 Packard limo, adding a tiny oval rear window, built for the wife of George McCauley, the company’s former president.
In the mid-1980s I was actively buying cars out of Argentina and Chile, and had I known these cars existed, I might have asked my buyer in Buenos-Aires to find one.
That widow’s peak at the top of the windshield really mars it—shame on whoever—but overall, what a fabulous car!
Almost everyone considers the widows peak one of the best features of the Kaiser, this is the first time I’ve ever heard someone say they don’t like it. Dutch Darrin designed this entire car, the only change from his design was KF engineers raised the roof for the rear seat passengers instead of Dutch’s design with a stepped frame, of which the accountants said would cost too much money.
Pulled a box with various files for cars I was offered in South America, and found what I was searching for; A 1961 Carabela extended wheelbase hearse and/or flower car for only $800. I came close to buying it in 1986, but due to it’s length the shipping cost estimate from port of Punta Lara to Baltimore came in at over $5,000 because it was just over 9 meters long and couldn’t fit in a 30 foot shipping container!