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HomeWillys-Overland

Willys-Overland

Design Notes

How Brooks Stevens’s designs for a postwar compact Willys evolved

April 24, 2025 Steve 8

(EXPANDED FROM 4/15/2022) Lately we have been talking about early-50s compacts, so I thought it was a good time to expand on aborted proposals from Willys. Prior to World War II this automaker had the […]

1953 Hudson hood emblem
History

Would Hudson have been Packard’s best merger partner?

May 15, 2024 Steve 15

(EXPANDED FROM 10/13/2021) A decade ago Curbside Classic commentator Steve (2014) offered one of the more thoughtful merger scenarios for Packard: He concluded that Hudson would have been the best choice. I think that Steve’s […]

History

1933-42 Willys: A better template for an import beater than later compacts

May 19, 2023 Steve 14

(EXPANDED FROM 1/22/2021) The 1933-42 Willys gets far less attention than it deserves. The model 77 and its successors were important because they anticipated the American compacts of the 1950s and 1960s. In addition, the […]

Quotes
Quotes

Willys story threads through much of 20th Century

May 7, 2021 Steve 0

“The Willys 77, conceptually, came from the (Willys) Whippet of 1927, and shared the engine from the Whippet. The Whippet was somewhere between the Model T and Model A in specification (think of a proto-Model […]

Watch for deer sign
Letters to the Editor

Further thoughts on a post-war Willys compact

January 25, 2021 Steve 3

Indie Auto readers can offer feedback either by submitting a comment at the bottom of a post or sending me a message (go here). Some messages initiate private conversations, but this one functions as a […]

1954 Ford ad
Data Dive

Was the ‘Ford blitz’ to blame for the collapse of independent automakers?

April 1, 2020 Steve 35

(EXPANDED 10/28/2022) A few years ago Richard M. Langworth argued that Ford’s aggressive attempt to overtake Chevrolet in 1954 received more blame “than it deserved” in undercutting the viability of independent automakers (2019, p. 16). […]

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    June 5, 2025 9
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    Peter Grist views car designer Virgil Exner through rose-tinted glasses
    June 3, 2025 9
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    1970 Mercury Montego had a last-of-the-wine quality
    June 2, 2025 2
  • A query, a thank you and an update on miscellaneous stuff
    April 4, 2025 0
  • 1956 Buick hood scoop
    Readers brainstorm ideas for future Indie Auto stories
    October 14, 2022 124
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