Along with the fact that his father was a big fan of them, Tom Markielewski has a pretty good reason for loving Kaiser automobiles.
“The uniqueness. It’s a car for the individualist. It’s the car for someone who doesn’t want the ‘belly button’ car like the ’55-56-57 Chevrolet. It’s not an ordinary, mundane car. It’s very out of the ordinary and it really stands out,” says the Oakfield, Wis., resident.
Even when he takes it to car shows and is surrounded by hobbyists, Markielewski often has plenty of explaining to do. “Yes, I have to answer a lot of questions,” he says. “The vast majority of people have never seen or heard of a Kaiser automobile, let alone Henry J. Kaiser himself, which is unfortunate. I just usually give them the short answer, which is ‘It’s a cousin to the Jeep.’”
Tom’s father, Jerry, dragged him into the wonderful world of independents and orphans at a young age. The older Markielewski operated a service station in Fond du Lac, Wis., and became friends with a couple of Kaiser-Frazer owners who were charter members of the Kaiser-Frazer Owners Club. “My father started collecting Kaisers in 1959,” he says. “We had mostly Chevy, Olds and Cadillacs … He had the Kaisers, but never ran them much. They mostly stayed in storage. After my dad retired in 1995, he was approached by a friend who restored cars about restoring one of the cars he had in storage. But his friend convinced him to buy one that was already restored because my father was already getting up there in years… It’s a good thing he did, because it was in 2001 that he bought this car and I lost my dad in 2009. He got a lot of enjoyment out of it, which is wonderful.”
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