I know there are some very knowledgable Willys folk on here who can perhaps help: Having been lucky and recently finding myself custodian of a 38 Willys truck project, I was trawling through various Willys related posts here on the Hamb and came across an old ad for a willys pick up which I think said something along the lines of "only 1200 of these made in 1938". Now i'm not disputing that figure at all, but it just got me curious as to how many Willys's were actually ever made... in particular, Pick-ups and Coupes, because 1200 seemed like an awfully low number? And then a friend mentioned to me that there were no 1939 pickups ever made. This got me intrigued and searching for actual manufacturers production figures for 1937 - 1942 but I found out pretty much nothing at all out there on the world wide interweb. With the HAMB being the font of all knowledge.... perhaps someone out there knows estimated production figures for all Willys, would just be interested to find out. Thanks
This may help a little. Looks like no production numbers for individual models produced are available in this publication. Click on picture to enlarge.
More info. This info. was printed in the book: ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN CARS by the editors of Consumer Guide. Published in 2001 by Publications International Limited, Lincolnwood, IL. ISBN number 0-7853-5999-0 ; Library of Congress Catalog Card number 96-68491.
Perhaps you can find some info on the Willys Overland Knight registry (www.wokr.org/) They have a ton of stuff available.
3day, That's a question that I have not found an accurate answer for in all my years of Willys ownership (1960-present). They were in government receivership for most of their 33-36 production, and didn't produce big numbers (I had heard in the teens, and low twenties, or even perhaps the 30's, during those years) 37-38 it seems were there biggest production years, and figures I have heard were the mid sixties and the high thirties. '39 was a relatively low production year with the numbers I have heard as the high teens. They did however produce a pickup in that year, only not with the 39 style front end...it was called a model 48, and had the 38 nose...I had a model 48, with a '39 title,(they had model 48 cars too). They did have some '39 noses on Aussie trucks (utes) of that era. Production was up again in '40, and '41, but I have never seen accurate numbers. Perhaps somewhere in the 20's or 30's during those two years. I had hear that less than 6000 '42's were produced, as they were already into Jeep production for the war. As far as how many were coupes, pickups, sedans, etc. those figures are even more vague. My best guess is about 10-15 % pickups, 20-25% coupes, and the rest were sedans. None of this from my perspective takes into account what may have been sent to Europe, and of course the frames, sheetmetal, and motors sent to Australia for the many body companies there, to transform into the Aussie models (we would all like to have), that varied so much from the US type. What say you Weasel...or Dave??? g-willys
wow, thank you for the quick responses, and all very interesting, it never ceases to amaze me how much knowledge there is on here. cheers
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