Kaiser Frazer Owners Club Forum
General Category => Willys Forum => Topic started by: WillysTom1 on November 19, 2018, 09:47:09 AM
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I attended our local Ford Model A meeting last week and one member gave a report ( based on an article in the summer issue of the "Dispatcher" magazine. The article was a focus on the competition of Bantam, Ford and Willys to win the Jeep contract from the government.
I then explained how Joe Frazer at Willys had their problematic four cylinder engine upgraded to the point that Willys offered a 100.000 mile drivetrain warranty in 1940. The 134 engine was so far advanced compared to the Bantam and Ford engines that Willys won the contract. Because Ford had such a large production capacity, they ended up producing almost half of the Jeeps during the war. A lot of the parts were interchangeable between the Ford and Willys versions. Some of the Ford Jeeps even had the Willys engine installed, others had the Ford produced 134 engine.
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Many of the early Ford Jeeps could be identified by a large FORD script stamped low on the rear of the Ford bodies. Ford also made their own tires and many of the bolts ,sealed beams and fixtures had Ford script stamped on them otherwise the Jeeps were identical. That was similar to Sears using their own tires, batteries etc on the re-badged Henry J's.
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Ford badged most everything on their version of the Jeep, including "F" script bolt heads. Restorers look for the F script bolts when putting one together.