Three American companies made fatal decisions in the early '50s that virtually killed off two of them. The Big Three were developing high performance V8 engines, but Willys, Kaiser-Frazer and Hudson decided to introduce smaller cars instead. The timing was all wrong as the compact wave didn't get started in earnest until 1960. Kaiser's Henry J had questionable styling with only two doors and no boot lid, and all three cost about the same as a Chevy or Ford to build. Only Willys survived because they had their Jeep to fall back on. Hudson became second fiddle to Nash in the formation of American Motors and Kaiser just folded up by 1955.