Car Spot: 1961 Futura/Waimea

Futuristic Kaiser prototype that never made it past the drawing board now a one-of-one creation.

In the 27 years that my dad worked for American Motors Corp., he brought lots of images of concept cars home for me to drool over. The problem was that AMC rarely had the funds to actually manufacture those concepts.

AMC wasn’t the only independent automaker that was cash-strapped. So were the others at the time, like Kaiser-Frazer, best known for owners of Jeep but also a producer of passenger cars through the mid-1950s. It’s one of their designs that is the subject of this week’s spot, although it took some time to get there.

But it wasn’t their design targeted toward consumers, but rather one of Henry J. Kaiser’s side hustles, a little company called Kaiser Aluminum, which he wanted to highlight with concepts that were possible using and working with Kaiser Aluminum. Rhys Miller and Frank Hershey, designer of the original 1956 Ford Thunderbird, produced a portfolio of all-aluminum car designs, including the 1961 Futura/Waimea.

The Miller and Hershey futuristic Kaiser prototypes never made it past the drawing board. But in the 1990s, automotive restorer Blake Larson of Minnesota pulled out his collected Kaiser Ads from the 1960s and was taken by one design, the “Waimea.” Rhys Miller is solely credited with the Waimea design.

Intrigued by its unusual middle driver’s seat with center steering, Larson decided it was time to bring the design to life. In an August 2000 Collectible Automobile magazine, Larson had a letter to the editor published explaining, “Five years ago, after restoring five cars, I decided to do something different. I retrieved the sketch of the Waimea and decided to try to build it. Because the driver sits in the middle up front, there is no room for an engine up there, so I started with a Corvair Lakewood wagon.”

Larson repurposed parts that added to the Futura Waimea’s style, such as ’59 Cadillac rocket taillights mounted on the D-pillar, a sunroof from a ’54 Ford Skyliner, instrument cluster from a ’49 Nash Ambassador, and a roof rack from a Chevy Vega Wagon.

Larson re-christened the car “Futura” after the early ’60s Ford Falcon Futura. It bears the Futura’s wheel covers and script. Power comes from a Corvair, air-cooled, 145 cu. in. flat-six engine, 84 hp in the rear, mated to a two-speed Powerglide automatic.

Larson showed his newly finished “Futura Waimea” around Minnesota in the 1990s. “It attracts a lot of attention wherever I drive it,” he said, but then it disappeared. In 2013, it turned up on eBay and was purchased by Motor Trend TV’s Chasing Classic Cars personality Wayne Carini. The Futura Waimea’s journey was featured in Season 17, Episode 5 of Chasing Classic Cars entitled Back to the Futura. I remember watching that episode. Lane Motor Museum acquired this car from Carini in 2021.

The Lane Motor Museum is a fantastic place to visit if you’re ever in Nashville, TN. I spent the better part of a day there and wrote about several of the other cars on my blog, so check them out. Thanks for stopping by and checking out my latest spot. Come back next Sunday for another one, along with some of its history. Have a great week ahead.