The story behind legendary Jeep’s name gives some fans the willies
ST. GEORGE, Utah — “Willis?” “Willie’s?”
What’s in a name? People have debated the pronunciation of WWII icon Willys Jeep for decades, but the company that builds its direct descendant, the Jeep Wrangler, says, “Whatever you like. We’re good.”
That’s the word from Jim Morrison, head of Jeep North America. I asked just after he showed me the 2024 Willys Wrangler, an olive-drab salute to the original 1941 Willys Jeep, which was famously built by Toledo-based automaker Willys-Overland — but also by Ford Motor Co. and the nearly forgotten American Bantam, based in Butler, Pennsylvania.
The name comes from John North Willys, one of the auto industry’s pioneers. For a few years early in the 20th century, Willys-Overland was America’s second largest automaker, behind rival tycoon Henry Ford’s brand and the Model T. It wasn’t the last time Willys and Ford would find themselves at odds.
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“I’ve heard both pronunciations in YouTube videos of Willys-Overland ads from the 1940s and ‘50s,” Morrison told me shortly before we drove a 2024 Jeep Wrangler into the southern Utah canyonlands. The preference today also varies regionally, he said.
“John North Willys reportedly pronounced it ‘Willis,’ as various Jeep histories note, but the Jeep community has used ‘willies’ forever,” auto writer and Jeep enthusiast Lindsay Brooke notes.
Willis or Willie's? Vintage Jeep commercials say both
Willys-Overland promotional films from just after WWII use both pronunciations freely. While they shed no light on elocution, they’re worth seeing for a sense of the Jeep’s postwar stature, and to see how the brand’s core message remains largely consistent 80 years later:
If the company that invented the Jeep — along with Ford and Bantam — didn’t insist on one pronunciation then, Stellantis, which now owns the brand, won’t today.
All three automakers contributed to the Jeep’s design and engineering, and all three built Jeeps in the auto industry’s massive defense effort. The earliest Jeep prototype known to exist, in fact, is a Ford.
In 1940-45, Willys-Overland built 362,894 Jeeps; Ford 285,660; American Bantam 2,676. Bantam also built around 60,000 trailers to haul gear behind Jeeps.
The Jeep was first in line when production of civilian vehicles resumed after the war. In fact, Willys got permission to begin production before hostilities ceased, on the principle that agricultural uses of the rugged little vehicle made it more important than personal transportation.
The pronunciation of Willys “is a great question,” said Matt Anderson transportation curator at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn. “We deal with it every year at our Old Car Festival, where we always have several Overland, Willys-Knight, and Whippet cars in attendance. When we announce the cars in our pass-in-review program, we always pronounce it ‘Willis.’
“I’ve put my trust in this story from the Toledo Blade stating that folks who knew and worked with John North Willys said that he himself pronounced it that way.”
Despite that, many of the brand’s devotees — not to mention many of the people who develop and build Jeeps — go with the more intuitive “Willies.”
Whatever you prefer, you’ll be in good company.
“As we say at Old Car Festival, you won’t get kicked out for pronouncing it either way,” Anderson promised.
Contact Mark Phelan: 313-222-6731 or mmphelan@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @mark_phelan. Read more on autos and sign up for our autos newsletter. Become a subscriber.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: This legendary vehicle’s name remains a mystery