NEW BUILDS: HENRY J – The Ugly Duckling of the 1950’s Gets An Upgrade

It’s Christmastime in Colorado, and your humble blogger is freezing his nether regions off! The weather over the past few days has been so inhospitable that I haven’t even left the house, since I thankfully stocked up on grub and cheer beforehand. Thus I am using my X-mas holiday time off work in the warmest part of the house, which also happens to be my favorite part: the man-cave in the basement, the Drag City Toy Room! Seemed like a perfect time to open some packages and put together a new slot car! Imagine that!

Well over half a century removed from that greatest decade in American history, its easy for us to look back at the cars of the 1950’s through rose-shaded glasses. Checking out any glossy picture book of the gorgeous offerings from the likes of the 5 General Motors divisions, the 5 Chrysler Corporation labels, and many others, it’s easy to think that every car made in that halcyon era was a cruise-ready kandy-koated dreamcicle. To disabuse us of that notion, Drag City is happy to present a look back at the Kaiser Henry J.

Small, dull, underpowered, uncomfortable, and downright ugly, the Henry J was everything we don’t see in the cars we like to remember from the ‘50’s. For all its vices, the Henry J did have some virtues: it was reliable due to its military Jeep-sourced inline-4 cylinder engine, and it was economical, managing to get nearly 30 MPG in an era when the average car got around 12. However, one has to wonder how much of a boon this was to drivers in an era when gasoline was 27 cents per gallon, and the American public had made their preference for bigger cars perfectly clear. And as for economy: while the price for the entry level Henry J was certainly low at around $1200, spending an additional $200 or so would bring a buyer up to a base-model Chevy, Ford, or Plymouth, all of which may have been equally barren inside but were larger, more substantial cars.

There’s no mincing words here: the Henry J was an awful car. In an effort to save money on production costs, it had no external trunk lid, no roll down rear quarter windows, and no flow-through ventilation, which must have made it especially fun to drive in the summer. Later down the road the “deluxe” Vagabond model was introduced which did offer a trunk lid and roll-down quarter windows, and a small flat-6 cylinder engine was also made available in 1951. Later still, more “deluxe” versions such as the Corsair added such classic styling elements as whitewall tires and a “continental kit”-style rear mounted spare, while interior upgrades were available with an under-dash mounted radio and tartan pattern cloth on the seats and door panels, but all of these additions really only served to make the car look even goofier than it looked in its base model form. While sales seemed promising in the car’s first year, they rapidly fell off a cliff, leading to a desperate move in 1952 to try to move unsold inventory by rebadging the car as an “Allstate” and selling them through Sears catalogs.

Thus the Henry J would doubtless have disappeared into obscurity save for a small handful of collector-owned oddities were it not for its discovery in the 1960’s by the exploding popularity of hot rodding. In the ‘60’s and ‘70’s these small, light, and structurally strong cars could be purchased for only a few dollars from junkyards and back yards across the land, and soon they were getting subframed with small block and even big block V8’s, tilt-up front ends, and roll bars. In fact, it’s a safe bet that the majority of Henry J’s that have survived the fate of the crusher to this day have been given exactly these modifications, which is where today’s “NEW BUILD” comes in.

This should be considered something of a “work in progress” because it didn’t come out the way I wanted. For one thing, right off the bat we have an error, since I was sure this body was going to be orange and when I opened it I found out it was red. There’s that monitor calibration issue again; seems like I’m going to have to address that sooner than later! More disappointing is some of the decals I used; the Rat Fink on the roof and the “Von Dutch” script on the sides and the flying eyeball on the back are all timeless hot rod images, but they are from a homemade decal set I bought years ago on ePay which are, to put it bluntly, crap quality; they are useful only on a white body due to their poor color density, and the foggy background looks mottled and cheap, so these are going to have to be considered temporary. The sponsor decals, by contrast, are courtesy of Road Race Replicas and are of the highest quality. I need to place a new order with RRR for various items which I plan to do as soon as the holiday is past, so some new decals to replace the disappointing ones I used to decorate this car will be included in that order. I plan to post some updated pics of this rig as soon as I have the car out of the “body shop” a second time.

Even though it’s unfinished, your H.B’s little imagination never stops, so the story behind this car is already formed! Dragged out of a junkyard north of Ocala in 1978 as little more than a shell, this base model “J” was given a makeover by French Canadian-born racer Bastien “Bully” Bouchard, who immigrated to Florida as a lad with his family and came of age working as a roughneck in the citrus fields driving and repairing delivery rigs and heavy farm equipment. Having made bank at a young age, Bouchard took up racing and built “Hypsoline Henry” in his back yard, fitting the custom made subframe with disk brakes and lightning-fast steering cradling the Chevy 427 big block that catapults the small light car to ludicrous speeds at ludicrous times. The tough, red-bearded Québécois has raced his way westward towing his crazy contraption on a trailer behind a 1970 Cadillac Sedan deVille and has wound up where every car nut does sooner or later: in southern California! Whether a car like this has what it takes to mount a real challenge on a road course like Drag City remains to be seen, but “Bully” Bouchard is throwing his hat in the ring and giving the muscle car challenges a try! It will be “interesting” for the crowd to see what comes of that effort!