Someone built this in their garage over the course of eight years.
With enough determination, skill, and financial resources, it’s amazing what people can do with classic cars. We see a potent example with this 1951 Kaiser Drag’n restomod, which features some cool, wild styling and more.
Keith Charvonia stopped by Jay Leno’s Garage a few years ago to show this ride off, so you might have already seen it. If so, this car is pretty entertaining to see again. If not, you’re in for a real treat. The industrial designer is used to creating all kinds of things starting with pure imagination. However, rearranging this Kaiser into something different was a labor of love which lasted eight years.
After patching up the floors and rocker panels since they were like Swiss cheese, Charvonia set about chopping about 6 inches off the top. In the process, he converted the Drag’n from a four-door sedan to a two-door coupe, making it look even sleeker.
As for the chassis and powertrain, all that came from a 1995 Chevy Caprice police car Charvonia found on eBay. Because the Caprice wheelbase was 3 inches shorter, Charvonia decided to just chop up the Kaiser to match, since he was already tearing into the car’s body a considerable amount. To look at it now, everything is silky smooth, so you’d never suspect it had an appearance closer to Frankenstein’s monster for a while.
While the body is amazing, it’s always the finishing details which make a car. Charvonia says most of the trim pieces are from the Kaiser, other than the headlight rings and the side mirrors. That’s quite amazing how he was able to get such a different look without combining essentially no elements from different brands.
You can chalk up a fair amount of the well-composed, sleek look of this Kaiser Dragon to Charvonia’s professional experience. He sketched out the design in advanced, Photoshopped, and modeled the concept before moving forward on reworking the Kaiser Drag’n. That kind of careful planning obviously payed off and this car is now a thing of legend in the automotive community.
