The First Family SUV?

Like many in the early days of the automobile industry, John Willys (it’s pronounced like Willis) was a dreamer. He imagined making a successful line of automobiles when he purchased the Overland Automotive in 1908. On many levels he succeeded but one more than even he could imagine.

As was the case with many early independent auto makers, Willys-Overland would have a success and then would expand. The expansions would often leave them in financial straits which were also often augmented by global and national economic factors. Willys followed this pattern of ups and downs and survived by constantly re-inventing itself.

It was the coming of war in Europe in the late 1930s that would see Willys have its greatest impact. The military saw the inevitable and put out bids to build a durable general purpose vehicle. A number of companies responded and Willys who won a contract to make what it dubbed the MB. Production began in 1941 as did versions from Ford and American Bantam. But it was Willys who saw the future and trademarked the term Jeep. No one is really sure where the term Jeep came from. Many believe it was a variation of the military’s term for the vehicle, General Purpose. 

After the war Willys Overland faced the problem of re-gearing up for automobile production. This was expensive and the pinch being put on by the Big Three made it even more difficult. One area where he was geared up and ready to roll was in making Jeeps. Unfortunately he wasn’t able to easily find a market for what he called the CJ-2A.

To help sell his military holdovers, Willys offered them with a bit more luxury and with many standard features that were options on other cars. Still, it was difficult to sell what was essentially a phaeton, meaning a vehicle without real weather protection. By 1949 he had simplified what was now known as the Jeepster and lowered the price. 

Production ended in 1950 and over its brief life just a little over 19,000 were sold. Still, this opened the door for all of the Jeep models to follow. In 1953 Willys Overland was purchased by Kaiser who ultimately dropped everything but the Jeep. In 1970 Kaiser was sold to American Motors. Renault bought a major portion of AMC in 1979. In 1983 it was Chrysler who bought out all of AMC basically so they could have the Jeep.