Willys

Willys-Overland Motors

Type	Truck Manufacturing
Industry	Automotive
Genre	Military Jeeps (MBs) and civilian versions (CJs)
Founded	1908
Founder(s)	John Willys
Headquarters	Toledo, Ohio, United States

Willys (correctly pronounced "Will-is", but almost universally as "Will-eez") was the brand name used by Willys-Overland Motors, an American automobile company best known for its design and production of military Jeeps (MBs) and civilian versions (CJs) during the 20th century.

Early History

Overland Model 91 Touring 1923

Willys Six 97 4-Door Sedan 1931

Willys Six 4-Door Sedan 1931

Willys 77 4-Door Sedan 1936

In 1908, John Willys bought the Overland Automotive Division of Standard Wheel Company and in 1912 renamed it Willys-Overland Motor Company. From 1912 to 1918, Willys was the second largest producer of automobiles in the United States after Ford Motor Company.

In 1913, Willys acquired a license to build the Charles Knight's sleeve-valve engine which it used in cars bearing the Willys-Knight nameplate. In the mid 1920s, Willys also acquired the F.B. Stearns Company of Cleveland, Ohio and assumed continued production of the Stearns-Knight luxury car as well.

Factory in Toledo, Ohio, about 1915

John Willys acquired the Electric Auto-Lite Company in 1914 and in 1917 formed the Willys Corporation to act as his holding company. In 1916, they acquired the Russell Motor Car Company of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, by 1917 New Process Gear, and in 1919 acquired the Duesenberg Motors Company plant in Elizabeth, New Jersey. The New Jersey plant was replaced by a new, larger facility and was to be the site of production for a new Willys Six, but the 1920 recession brought the Willys Corporation to its knees. The bankers hired Walter P. Chrysler to sort out the mess and the first model to go was the Willys Six, deemed an engineering disaster. Chrysler had auto engineers Owen Skelton, Carl Breer and Fred Zeder begin work on a new car, the Chrysler Six.

In 1917 Ward M. Canaday who had been doing advertising for the company became a full time employee of the corporation.

In order to raise cash needed to pay off debts, all of the Willys Corporation assets were on the auction block. The Elizabeth plant and the Chrysler Six prototype were sold to William C. Durant, then in the process of building a new, third empire. The plant would build Durant's low priced Star, while the Chrysler Six prototype would be improved and modified, becoming the 1923 Flint.

Walter Chrysler moved on to Maxwell-Chalmers, where in January 1924 he launched his own version of the six-cylinder Chrysler he had been working on, one still based partially on elements originally developed at Willys. (In 1925 the Maxwell car company would become the Chrysler Corporation).

Depression Era

In 1926, production of the Overland ended and was replaced by the Whippet brand of small cars. Following the stock-market crash of 1929 and the economic depression that soon followed, a number of Willys automotive brands began to falter. Stearns-Knight was liquidated in 1929. Whippet production ended in 1931, its models replaced by the Willys Six and Eight. Production of the Willys-Knight ended in 1933.

At this point Willys decided to clear the boards and produce two new models — the 4-cylinder Willys 77 and the 6-cylinder Willys 99 — but the firm was on the verge of bankruptcy again, so only the 77 went into production. They were forced to sell their Canadian subsidiary, itself in weak financial shape, and started a massive reorganization. In it, only the main assembly plant and some smaller factories remained property of Willys-Overland. The rest were sold off to a new holding company that leased some of the properties back to W-O. The company was thus able to ride out the storm.

In 1936 the Willys-Overland Motor Company was reorganized as Willys-Overland Motors. In the 1920s and 1930s, Willys was an unremarkable automaker based in Toledo, Ohio, one of dozens in the U.S. However In 1937 Willys came out with a redesigned four which featured a semi-streamlined body with a slanted windshield, headlamps integrally embedded into the fenders and a one-piece, extremely rounded hood transversely hinged at the rear.

WWII & The Jeep

It was one of several bidders when the War Department sought an automaker who could begin rapid production of a lightweight truck based on a prototype designed by American Bantam.

In 1938 Joseph W. Frazer had joined Willys from Chrysler as chief executive. He saw a need to improve the firm's 4-cylinder engine to handle the punishment to which the Jeep would be subjected. This objective was brilliantly achieved by ex-Studebaker chief engineer Delmar "Barney" Roos, who wanted

"an engine that could develop 15 horsepower at 4,400 r.p.m. and run for 150 hours without failure. What he started with was an engine that developed 48 horsepower at 3,400 r.p.m., and could run continuously for only two to four hours. . . It took Barney Roos two years to perfect his engine, by a whole complex of revisions that included closer tolerances, tougher alloys, aluminum pistons, and a flywheel reduced in weight from fifty-seven to thirty-one pounds".^[1]

Production of the Willys MB, better known as Jeep, began in 1941, shared between Willys, Ford and American Bantam which had initiated the original Jeep body design. 8,598 units were produced that year, and 359,851 units were produced before the end of World War II. In total, 653,568 military Jeeps were eventually manufactured. The origin of the name "Jeep" has been debated for many years. Some people believe "Jeep" is a phonetic pronunciation of the abbreviation GP, from "General Purpose", that was used as part of the official Army nomenclature. The first documented use of the word "Jeep" was the name of a character Eugene the Jeep in the Popeye comic strip, known for his supernatural abilities (e.g., walking through walls). It was also the name of a small tractor made by Minneapolis-Moline^{[citation needed]} before WW2. Whatever the source, the name stuck and, after the war, Willys filed a successful trademark claim for the name.^{[citation needed]}

Post-War Struggles

At the end of the war, Willys did not resume production of its pre-war passenger car models, choosing instead to concentrate on Jeeps and Jeep-based vehicles. The first postwar Willys product was the CJ-2A. The CJ-2A was an MB stripped of obviously military features, particularly the blackout lighting, and with the addition of a tailgate.

Willys initially struggled to find a market for the vehicle, with early efforts to sell it primarily as an alternative to the farm tractor. Tractors were in short supply having been out of production during the war. Despite this, sales of the "Agri-Jeep" never took off, mainly because it was too light to provide adequate draft.

However, the CJ-2A was among the first civilian vehicles of any kind to be equipped with four-wheel drive from the factory, and it gained popularity among farmers, ranchers, hunters, and others who needed a lightweight vehicle for use on unimproved roads and trails.

In 1946, a year after the introduction of the CJ-2A, Willys produced the Willys "Jeep" Utility Wagon based on the same engine and transmission, with clear styling influence from the CJ-2A Jeep. The next year came a "Jeep" Utility Truck with four-wheel drive. In 1948, the wagon was available in four-wheel drive, making it the ancestor of all sport utility vehicles.

Willys planned to re-enter the passenger car market in 1947 with the Willys 6-70 sedan. It name came from the fact it was powered by a 6-cylinder engine that produced 70 hp. The 6-70 was touted as the first stock car in America that offered independent suspension on all four wheels, but it never entered production.^[2]

In 1948 under a contract from the US Army Willys produced a small one man four wheeled utility vehicle called the Jungle Burden Carrier which evolved into the M274 Utility 1/2 ton vehicle.

Willys later produced the M38 Jeep for the U.S. Army, and continued the CJ series of civilian Jeeps. Another variation of the Jeep was the Jeepster. A more civilian variation, it came with either a 4-cylinder or 6-cylinder engine but came only with two-wheel drive to the rear.

The Fifties

In 1952 Willys re-entered the car market with a new compact car, the Willys Aero. At first available only as a two door sedan, it was available with either an L-head or F-head six cylinder engine. Export markets could get the Aero with a four cylinder engine. A four door sedan and a two door hardtop were added for 1953 along with taxi models. The Aero cars were called Lark, Wing, Falcon, Ace or Eagle depending on year, engine and trim level, except for a small production run in its final year (1955) with models called Custom and Bermuda. The bodies for the Willys Aero were supplied to Willys/Kaiser by the Murray Body company, who also made the bodies for the short-lived Hudson Jet. Also in 1952, CJ3B Jeeps went into production. By 1968, over 155,000 were sold.

In 1953 Kaiser Motors purchased Willys-Overland and changed the name to Willys Motor Company. The same year, production of the Kaiser car was moved from Willow Run, Michigan to the Willys plant at Toledo, Ohio. Although Jeep production was steady, sales of the Willys and Kaiser cars continued to fall. In 1954, the CJ5 debuted at the start of its three-decade run.

After the last Willys passenger car was built in 1955, Willys shipped the tooling for the Aero to Brazil, where it was built from 1960 to 1962, almost unchanged. A 1953 Aero Lark was located in the estate of the late Howard Hughes, after he died enroute to the US from Mexico aboard a small private airplane. Brooks Stevens restyled it for 1963, and the Aero continued to be built by Ford after they purchased Willys-Overland do Brasil until the 1970s. The American company changed its name again in 1963 to Kaiser-Jeep Corporation, at which time the Willys name disappeared.

• 

  Whippet 4-Door Sedan

• 

  Whippet Model 96A Touring 1929

• 

  1930 Whippet 96A sedan

• 

  Whippet Model 96 Coach 1927

Legacy

Kaiser-Jeep was sold to American Motors Corporation (AMC) in 1970 when Kaiser Industries decided to leave the automobile business. After the sale, AMC used engines it had developed for its other cars in the Jeep products to improve performance and standardize production and servicing.

Renault purchased a major stake in AMC in 1979 and took over operation of the company, producing the CJ series until 1986. Chrysler purchased AMC in 1987 after the CJ had already been replaced with the Jeep Wrangler (also known as the YJ and later TJ), which had little in common with the CJ series other than outward appearance. DaimlerChrysler, now Chrysler LLC, still produces Jeep vehicles at a brand new Toledo Complex.

DaimlerChrysler would introduce the Overland name for a trim package on the 2003–present Jeep Grand Cherokee. The badging is a recreation of the Overland nameplate from the early twentieth century.

• 

  Overland Model 38 Roadster 1910

• 

  Overland Model 46 Torpedo Roadster 1911

• 

  Overland Model 82 Touring 1915

• 

  Overland Model 91 Touring 1922

List of Willys vehicles

1922 Willys-Knight Model 20 in the Petersen Automotive Museum

1943 Willys Jeep MB

Aero-Willys

1957 Willys pickup (four-wheel drive)

Willys FC170 Truck 1957

Willys FC150 Truck 1963

Willys cars

• Willys 77 (1933–1936)
• Willys Four
• Willys Six
• Willys Eight
• Willys-Knight (1914–1933)
• Willys Americar (1940–1942)
• Willys Sedan 1940-4D
• Stearns-Knight
• also many early cars with model numbers

Overland

• Baby Overland
• Overland Whippet (1926–1931)
• Overland Four
• Overland 59t (1911–1912)
• Overland Six
• Overland 93
• Overland 39
• also many early cars with model number

Aero-Willys

• Aero-Willys JT (1951)
• Aero-Willys Wing (1952)
• Aero-Willys Scout (1953)
• Aero-Willys Lark (1952–1954)
• Aero-Willys Ace (1952–1954)
• Aero-Willys Falcon (1953)
• Aero-Willys Eagle (1952–1954)
• Aero-Willys 2600 (1960–1969) or Ford Aero (1970–1971) (Brazil)
• Aero Willys Brooks Stevens´ design (1963)

Willys-Overland

• Willys Dauphine (1959–1967), licensed from Renault (Brazil)
• Willys Gordini (1962–1968), licensed from Renault (Brazil)
• Willys Itamaraty (1966–1971) (Brazil)
• Willys Interlagos (1961–1966), licensed from Renault. 1500 produced. (Brazil)
• Willys Itamaraty Executivo (limousine) (1966–1969) (Brazil)
• Willys-Overland Crossley (United Kingdom)

Jeeps

• Willys MA (Original Jeep Concept)
• Willys MB (1941–1945) 335,531 produced.
• Willys CJ2 (1944–1945)
• Willys CJ2A (1946–1949)
• Willys Wagon (1946–1965) 300,000 produced.
• Willys CJ3A (1949–1953) 132,000 are produced.
• Willys Pickup (1947–1965) 200,000 are produced.
• Willys Jeep FC
• Willys Jeepster (1948–1950) 19,000 are produced.
• Willys M38 (1951–1952) 61,423 produced.
• Willys CJ3B (1952–1968) 155,000 are produced.
• Willys M38A1 (1952–1957)
• Willys CJ5 later Jeep CJ5 (1954–1983) 600,000 are produced.
• Rural Jeep (1958–1969) or Ford Rural (1970–1977) (Brazil)
• 1960 - 1977 Rural 1960 Brazilian re-styling
• Willys Corvo (19??-?) (Chile)

Body type designations

• Bermuda - Hardtop designation, 1955

Advertisements

A 1918 Willy's Knight advertisement - "Sleeve Valve Motor" - Syracuse Herald, May 8, 1918

1920 Willys-Knight advertisement

See also

• List of defunct automobile manufacturers

References

1. ^ Hartwell D The Mighty Jeep American Heritage Magazine, Vol 12 No 1, December 1960
2. ^ "Willys Springs A New One", January 1946, Popular Science. Books.google.com. http://books.google.com/books?id=NSEDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA77&dq=popular+science+January+1946&hl=en&ei=vb7kTIbiC4uQnwfUwpT4BQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&sqi=2&ved=0CDQQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=popular%20science%20January%201946&f=true. Retrieved 2011-01-09. 

External links

• History of the Willys company
• Dauphine Willys on Dauphinomaniac
• More Links and Info
• Willys-Overland-Knight-Registry Registry of vintage vehicles still running
• Willys models in Brazil