You won't find more accurate Willys-Overland production information anywhere else. This production information was transcribed into electronic form by Charlie Weaver from a hand written a compilation Norton Young did between 1959 and 1961. Norton Young was an employee of Willys/Kaiser at the time and did the compilations so that executives at Kaiser would have yearly production information.

There are disparities between this production information and production information from other sources. Many things could cause these disparities, but the most likely thing to cause them would be the choice of start and end times. In the early years Willys-Overland did not have model years like automobile manufactures do today. In fact, it was common for mid year changes to be made when ever the engineering department came up with new ideas. Norton Young's production numbers are based on build date and a regular calendar year.

Titling practices in the 40s and 50s were very relaxed by todays standards. Many states in the US didn't title cars at all and a sales receipt was sufficient for proof of ownership. Often, vehicles were titled the year they were sold or the dealerships would send away to the manufactures for "fresh" paper work so last years models could be sold as current year models. If you have an older Jeep, chances are the title is wrong.

It is common to look up a serial number for a Jeep to determine the year the vehicle was built, because it is common to have an incorrect title or no title at all for an old vehicle. To make this process easier, the serial numbers have been organized by model. The original data compiled by Mr. Young was organized by year.

It is a shame that Norton Young didn't continue to keep production statistics. Charlie contacted Mr. Young to talk about his work:

In a talk with Norton Young a week or 2 ago, he told me that by 1961, the folks in the corner offices at K-F had no more interest in these statistics so he quit keeping them. He also said that he had difficulty getting "timely" reports from the production people, and often had to go through the unit sheets himself and try to piece the info together. He admitted that there may be some errors.

This article is not meant to cover passenger cars, but the information was available in the original, so it has been included rather than edited out.

The following abbreviation key explains some of the known abbreviations used in the original. If you have information on the unknown abbreviations, please email me.

Yearly Totals

Footnotes

Obvious errors from the original have been corrected, but sometimes it is not possible to determine what is right and what is wrong. Errors that have been found have been noted here. Also noted here are some corrections that have been made that could be questionable.

Contributors

Thanks to Norton Young for providing the information and Charlie "SleeveValve" Weaver for transcribing the information to electronic form. Thanks to Mark Sailer for sending me that Willys-Overland sign.