Jeep 1941 - 2001 The Original 4x4 Sport Utility vehicle is now 60 years old. Here we chart the meteoric rise from a military drawing board to one of the best selling off-road vehicles of all time. 1950-1960 GOODBYE TO WILLYS-OVERLAND:
Willys-Overland ushered in the 1950s with a horizontal grille for the Jeepster, two new engines, a new 1/2-ton FWD pickup truck and a new one-ton 4WD pickup - an exclusive in its field. A bold look was created by the truck's V-grille mass.
The pickup featured the new high-compression Hurricane engine, the most economical and powerful standard size four-cylinder automotive engine to use commercially available gasoline. The Hurricane was developed under the direction of Delmar Roos, the father of the first Willys Jeep military vehicle, and became the standard engine for Willys-Overland's complete line of utility passenger cars and trucks. It produced a "whopping" 72 brake horsepower at 4,000 rpm. The pickups represented the newest addition to the W-O line of "America's most useful vehicles?' The second engine introduced in 1950 was the "Lightning" six-cylinder, offered as an option on the Jeepster and two-wheel-drive Willys Station Wagon. The Lightning represented increased bore and stroke, cubic displacement, compression and horsepower (75 at 4,000 rpm) over the previous Willys 6.
The name Willys-Overland had become world famous over nearly half a century, but 1953 saw a new owner, a new name and new directions for the company. For an estimated $60 million, the Henry J. Kaiser interests acquired all W-O facilities, plants and vehicles in April to go with their own line of Kaiser passenger cars. The new name was Willys Motors, Inc., and the new direction was international. However, Kaiser left Willys alone in its Jeep pursuits. And a good thing: in 1954 the CJS was introduced and became such a popular 4WD vehicle that it endured, albeit with improvements in power plants, axles, transmissions and seating comfort, all the way to 1983. While similar in specifications to the original civilian Jeep CJ2A, the CJS featured softer styling lines, including rounded body contours. The CJS was based on the slightly larger M38A1 military Jeep, which came into existence in 1951 and later saw service in Korea and Vietnam until 1963, when it was replaced by the M151.
Kaiser continued producing the utility line of Jeep Universal vehicles and the Willys passenger cars through the mid- 1950s, adding two of the industry's most unique vehicles - the 1955 two-wheel-drive dispatcher surrey, based on the Universal line, and the 1956 FC series trucks. The dispatcher line expanded in 1959 with a version called the Gala. It actually had fringe around the soft top. The Forward Control or FC series began with the 1956 FC-150, built on the 81-inch CJS chassis, and the FC-170, which rode on the Willys utility wagon's 103.5-inch chassis. The FCs' unique cab-over-engine design gave them a hoodless, flat-nose appearance. The FCs were produced until 1964 and may someday be remembered as before their time for the cab-forward design now coming into its own in the 1990s. The mid-1950s also marked the beginning of Kaiser's influence on the future of the 4WD sport utility industry as the company began an extensive research and engineering program to broaden the utilitarian 4WD vehicle market. The fruits .of that program would first be seen in the fall of 1962. Kaiser's desire to broaden its Jeep lineup was equalled by the goal of expanding sales in foreign markets. Over 16 years, Kaiser established manufacturing facilities in some 30 foreign countries and marketed Jeep vehicles in more than 150 countries around the world.
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