John Willys (1873 – 1935) was an American dealer of cars manufactured by Overland Motors in the late 1890s. In 1907, Overland Motors ran in to financial trouble. Willys sensing trouble to his dealership business, organised enough finances and bought over Overland Motors. In 1912, the company was renamed as Willys-Overland.
Willys-Overland manufactured cars including cars with Knight Sleeve valve engines. Sleeve valve engines were alternative to poppet valves as we see in modern cars.
During world war, Willys participated in a US military tender to design, develop and manufacture small, agile, all-terrain military vehicle. The tender was contested by Willys, Ford Motor company and a small, relatively unknown company by name American Bantam Company. The Bantam design won the military approval. In order to speed up production and volumes, the US military asked both Ford and Willys to manufacture this design and thus was born Willys GP – General Purpose Vehicle. No one knows how and when GP transformed itself to Jeep, as we know today.
Post the war, the Jeep designs were extended to civilian use and identified as ‘CJ – Civilian Jeep‘. These CJs were made across the world with joint ventures with local companies. In 1945, production started in India of CJ2A/CJ3B with Mahindra & Mahindra.
In 1953, Kaizer-Frazer took over Willys-Overland and renamed it as Willys Motors. In 1970, amidst financial troubles, Willys Motors was taken over by American Motor Corporation. In 1987, Lee Iacocca of Chrysler Corporation took over the company and integrated it as Jeep-Eagle division. Finally , in 2009, Jeep division was taken over by Fiat and it is now part of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles.
FCA is part of the Stellantis group post the meger of FCA and PSA (Peugeot)
Automotive Legends by Samuel Premkumar 
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