Maywood, CA assembly operations

[jneely]

Is anyone aware of a means to differentiate California versus Toledo assembled cars? Perhaps a VIN range or some other unique identifying feature(s)?

I've recently come into some photos from assembly operations in Maywood, CA. Two of my hardtops were sold and in service in Northern California for all of their life. I'm curious if I can determine they were built there.

[G.B. (All Vinyl Dragon)]

LA Old Hometown & had Close Friends lived in the Area. Sorry forgot they had a Assembly Plant in Maywood for K F ?

[kaiserfrazerlibrary]

Willys-Overland set up the Maywood CA Plant during the postwar period to supply dealers & distributors on the West Coast.  They not only built Aero Willys cars in the 1950's but jeep station wagons and other jeep vehicles,  Maywood was closed in 1954 as part of consolidating the operations of W-0 and K-F under the Willys Motors, Inc., operation.,

Unlike Kaiser-Frazer and other car companies that put a prefix or other identifier into the serial number to identify where assembled, Toledo sent Maywood blocks of serial numbers (sort of like what K-F did with the overseas plants) for their vehicles.  While some service-related documents show start points for various running changes made to vehicles during a particular model year, there is no indication that I know of on what was sent west. 

Maybe Rick Kamen can supply better info.

[Aeroman]

Certain Maywood-built Aeros from 1953 and re-serialed 1954's have special paint that was only out of the Maywood plant. I only recently discovered a 1954 Sherwin-Williams paint chip sheet that notates three colors as West Coast only: Pacific Glow, Hermosa Red and Coronado Sand. As my car is a re-serialed 1954 west coaster, I've deduced that my paint codes, 85 and 86 (which I could never and still cannot document) are Hermosa Red and Coronado Sand respectively. I'm not sure which code number would be Pacific Glow. I believe this only applied to Aces and Eagles, but that is not confirmed yet. If anyone can supply me with the 1953 Sherwin-Williams paint chips, I would be very appreciative.

[Aeroman]

Oh yeah, the Willys-Overland Maywood plant was originally opened in 1928, see attached Los Angeles Times article. The building still exists.

[jneely]

Thanks all for the info.
Both of my California cars are 79 Woodstock Green Metallic / 78 Jasper Green, which is a common color combo and I don't believe unique to Maywood.

My records indicate that 652-LA1-10720, a 52 Aero-Wing was the 1st car built at Maywood. It had engine # 6P-10042. It was used for media and publicity.
See 'Auto Age' Feb '53

It is not clear, but I would suspect paint and final assembly operations were in Maywood. Engines were shipped in from Toledo. There are staged photos showing fitment of inner fender and sub-frame components in Maywood - but I was of the understanding that due to complexity of stampings for the unit-body, that Aero bodies were actually supplied by Murray to Toledo (and likely Maywood, as well.)

[kaiserfrazerlibrary]

Paint, line many "generic" parts (as oppossed to grilles, body stampings, etc) were shipped to the plant in CA by suppliers based on purchase orders issued from Toledo's purchasing department.  When the company I was with shipped engine block casstings to engine assembly they parcelled total on order so many to this engine plant, so many to another engine plant, etc, based on master build schedule requirements.

[Aeroman]

JNeely - any possibility of getting digital copies of your documentation on the Maywood/Aero operations? I have nothing other than what I posted in this thread.