Dutch Darrin's coachbuilding carreer began in Europe where his company, Hibbard & Darrin, designed custom bodies for upscale automakers such as Rolls-Royce. When he returned to the US in 1937, Darrin established his own coachbuilding firm, Darrin of Paris, in California which became known for working with Packard, (the stunning and extremely rare 1940 - 41 Packard Convertible Victoria by Darrin is highly coveted today).

After WWII, Darrin explored the possibility of building his own car. And while the Darrin Motor Car received a decent amount of publicity, it never materialized. He then became involved with the Kaiser-Frazer Corporation as a consultant where modified versions of his designs were incorporated into several Kaiser and Frazer automobiles beginning in 1947.

In the early 1950s, Kaiser contacted Darrin once again, this time to make the Henry J economy car more attractive. Darrin knew he could come up with a beautiful design. The problem was that he didn't have much flexibility with the restrictions that were imposed with regard to the car's size and cost.

Darrin took a chance and designed and self-financed a 2-seat roadster body for the Henry J's chassis without Kaiser's knowledge. He borrowed a few ideas from the Darrin Motor Car experiment, one of which was to build the body out of fiberglass. Darrin contacted boat builder Bill Tritt, (of Glasspar fame), and arranged for a prototype body to be built. When it was ready, it was fitted to a Henry J chassis.

Darrin then called company president Henry Kaiser and invited him to have a look. Initially, Kaiser was not impressed because his company, in his words, was, "not in the business of building sports cars." Fortunately, Kaiser's wife was extremely impressed and suggested that Kaiser get into that business, which he did, (Kaiser was, indeed, a smart man).

The prototype Darrin debuted in September 1952 at the Los Angeles Motorama show. This is significant because the Kaiser Darrin became America's first sports car, debuting two months ahead of the Chevrolet Corvette.

The car's most unique feature was its sliding doors. Instead of opening outward, the Darrin's door slid forward behind the front fenders. While the sliding doors were unique and looked great, they were also problematic. Any debris that happened to get stuck in the tracks caused the doors to jam.

The prototype Darrin from 1952 used standard running gear from the Henry J. But for the production version, Darrin and Kaiser both realized that a sports car needed more power. Several options were considered including trying to modify the existing Henry J engine, purchasing "Rocket" V8s from Oldsmobile, and even developing a V8 in-house.

In the end, Kaiser turned to Willys-Overland whom it merged with in 1953. The 161 CID Willys "Hurricane" I6 may not have been the most powerful engine out there. But it was solidly built and readily available. The 90 hp produced by the Willys engine doesn't sound like much. But it only had around 2,400 pounds to move. Performance was decent for the era, but not great by any means.

Numerous production problems cause the actual arrival of the car to be delayed until December 1953. The finished product had its good points and bad points.

The Darrin featured a beautiful and unique design that was generally well received. The car's acceleration was comparable to other cars from the era. Ride quality was generally praised, as were the car's brakes. Fuel economy was reported to be around 30 mpg.

While performance wasn't bad, it wasn't great either, especially compared to its more sport-oriented competitors like the Corvette. But the biggest obstacle was the car's price. At $3,668, the Darrin was more expensive than a Cadillac Series 62. The problem was while the buyer got a beautiful sports car, it was saddled with mediocre performance that didn't match its image or price point.

Sales were understandably few. A total of 6 prototypes and 435 production cars were completed before Kaiser was out of the automobile business in 1955.

And with that, my stroll through the AACA show had ended. Now it was time to head back into the speedway to check out more of the Auto Fair.