Early history 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
Charles Yale 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 and assumed continued production of the
Stearns-Knight luxury car, as well. 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, it acquired the
Russell Motor Car Company of
Toronto,
Ontario, and the
Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Company in
Buffalo, New York, 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 in
Indianapolis, and was to be the site of production for a new
Willys Six at an adjacent site, but the
depression of 1920–21 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 three auto engineers:
Owen Skelton,
Carl Breer, and
Fred Zeder (later nicknamed
The Three Musketeers) begin work on a new car, commonly referred to as the
Chrysler Six. To raise cash needed to pay off debts, many of the Willys Corporation assets were put 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 built Durant's low-priced
Star, while the Chrysler Six prototype was substantially reworked to become the 1923
Flint. (In 1925, the Maxwell car company became the
Chrysler Corporation.)
Depression era In 1926, Willys–Overland introduced a new line of small cars named Willys–Overland Whippet. In the
economic depression of the 1930s, a number of Willys automotive brands faltered. Stearns-Knight was liquidated in 1929. Whippet production ended in 1931; its models were replaced by the Willys Six and Eight. Production of the Willys-Knight ended in 1933. There was also a pickup truck version of the Whippet, called the Willys-Six C-113 (reflecting its wheelbase in inches). This was not a sales success, with a mere 198 units being built. This vehicle was picked up by
International Harvester, who installed their own 213-cubic inch engine and offered it in 1933 as the International D-1. In 1932, Ward M. Canaday, who beginning in 1916 had done advertising for the company before becoming a full-time employee, took on the role of chairman. He helped guide the company through its current
receivership. At this time, Willys decided to clear the boards and produce two new models – the 4-cylinder
Willys 77 and the 6-cylinder Willys 99 – but since the firm was once again on the verge of bankruptcy, only the 77 went into production. It was forced to sell its Canadian subsidiary, itself in weak financial shape, and started a massive reorganization. Only the main assembly plant and some smaller factories remained the property of Willys–Overland. The other assets were sold off to a new holding company that leased some of the properties back to W-O. The parent company was thus able to ride out the storm. In 1936, the Willys–Overland Motor Company was reorganized as Willys–Overland Motors. In 1937, Willys redesigned the 4-cylinder model. It gained a semistreamlined body with a slanted windshield, headlamps integrally embedded into the fenders, and a one-piece, rounded hood transversely hinged at the rear. For 1939, the Model 39 featured Lockheed hydraulic brakes, a two-inch increase in wheelbase to 102 inches and an improved 134 CID four-cylinder engine with power increased from 48 to 61 hp. The Model 39 was marketed as an Overland and as a Willys–Overland rather than as a Willys.
World War II Jeep Willys–Overland was one of two bidders when the
United States Army sought an automaker that could begin rapid production of a lightweight reconnaissance car based on a design 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 abuse to which the vehicle would be subjected. This objective was brilliantly achieved by ex-
Studebaker chief engineer
Delmar "Barney" Roos, who wanted
American Bantam was the sole manufacturer of serial production jeeps delivered to the US Army in 1940. Ford,
American Bantam, and Willys all manufactured jeeps for the US Army in 1941. Production of the
Willys MB, commonly called a jeep, began in November 1941. Ford,
American Bantam, and Willys together produced 8,598 units in 1940. Willys–Overland ranked 48th among United States corporations in the value of World War II military production contracts. In total, 647,870 military Jeeps were manufactured by the end of
World War II, 362,841 by Willys, 280,448 by Ford and 2,675 by American Bantam. The word "Jeep" was first used to describe US Army "midget cars" in a January 1941 newspaper article, mentioning "Bantam" as the manufacturer. In January 1941 American Bantam was the only manufacturer that had actually fulfilled purchase orders to deliver jeeps to the US Army. Some people believe "jeep" is a phonetic pronunciation of the abbreviation GP, but Ford did not start manufacturing jeeps until February 1941, Whatever the source, the name stuck and on February 13, 1943, Willys–Overland filed a trademark application on the use of the term "Jeep" with the U.S. Patent Office. After several denials by the patent office and appeals by Willys–Overland, the trademark "Jeep" was finally awarded to the company on June 13, 1950. Willys also built 1292 airframes for the
JB-2 Loon.
Postwar struggles After the war, Willys did not resume production of its passenger-car models, choosing instead to concentrate on Jeeps and Jeep-based vehicles. The first postwar Willys product was the
CJ-2A, 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, first attempting to sell it primarily as an alternative to the farm
tractor. Tractors were in short supply, having been out of production during the war. However, sales of the "Agri-Jeep" never took off, mainly because it was too light to provide adequate draft. 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. Its 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. In 1948, under a contract from the U.S. Army, Willys produced a small one-man four-wheeled utility vehicle called the
Jungle Burden Carrier which evolved into the M274 Utility -ton vehicle. Willys later produced the
M38 Jeep for the U.S. Army, and continued the
CJ series of civilian Jeeps. One variation was the
Jeepster, which came with a 4-cylinder or 6-cylinder engine, but only with two-wheel drive to the rear.
1950s 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 by the
Murray Body Corporation, which also made the bodies for the short-lived
Hudson Jet. Also in 1952, CJ-3B Jeeps went into production. By 1968, over 155,000 were sold. In 1953,
Kaiser Motors purchased Willys–Overland and changed the company's 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.
The Brazilian era Willys–Overland established its Brazilian operations in 1953, just before the Kaiser-Frazer takeover. The tooling for the Aero went to Brazil, where it entered production in 1960. In 1956–1957, Brazil's Executive Group for the Automotive Industry (GEIA) had approved Willys–Overland for production of the Aero, the Willys MB Jeep, a truck version of the Jeep called the Rural, and the French
Renault Dauphine small car. Also, an abortive plan was made to create a company called Chrysler-Willys do Brasil SA to build the 1956
Plymouth Savoy and a Dodge truck there, Willys went through considerable effort to appear as a Brazilian company, even selling a large portion of their company to Brazilian stockholders to forestall a possible nationalist backlash, and to become eligible for various government incentives. The little tail-engined Dauphine was a result of Kaiser's Renault connection, and was produced by Willys do Brasil from 1959 until 1968. Willys–Overland was one of the first companies to enter the Brazilian passenger automobile market, and their early entry originally paid off, with sales spiking in 1954 when Willys became the number-one selling car. Being distributed by the family of
Getúlio Vargas' closest advisor
Osvaldo Aranha also helped, and Willys–Overland reached a 52% share of Brazilian passenger car production in 1959. Willys held a market share of around 30% in Brazil from 1960 until 1966, its last full year as an independent, mostly Brazilian-owned company. Willys entered the Brazilian market in the hope of offsetting their shrinking market and losses at home. However, unlike in the case of the Argentinian Kaiser operations, which were essentially developed around hand-me-downs, Willys built a very modern plant from the ground up in Brazil. However, by late 1961, Brazilian-built Willys Jeeps began to be exported to
Chile. Willys expanded into Brazil's impoverished northeast in the early 1960s, when they built an assembly plant for the Jeep in the state of
Pernambuco. In 1962, Willys started building the French
Alpine A108 as the Willys Interlagos. It was produced until 1966 and was the first Brazilian-made sports car. It was also the car in which many Brazilian racers cut their teeth, including greats such as
Emerson Fittipaldi. Willys also designed and showed a larger sports car called the "Capeta" (Devil) in 1964, powered by the 2.6-litre six-cylinder Aero engine. Early Corcels had "Willys" stamping in the glass, and the Corcel line (which continued in production until 1997 as the
Ford Pampa) always showed its French origins in its characteristic three-bolt wheels. In 1967, Ford took a controlling interest in Kaiser and thereby gained control of Willys–Overland do Brasil. The Aero-based Itamaraty continued in production until the early 1970s, in latter years wearing "Ford" badges. Dauphine production ended in 1968, but the Willys Rural/Pickup and its derivatives were built as the Ford F-75 until 1983. The only visual difference is that the post-1970 cars have a tailgate with "Ford" rather than "Jeep" stamped in it. The military version of the Jeep Pickup was called the F-85. In America, the company had already changed its name in 1963 to
Kaiser-Jeep Corporation; the Willys name disappeared thereafter. ==Legacy==