John North Willys

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John North Willys (ca.1918)

John North Willys (born October 25, 1873 in Canandaigua , New York , †  August 26, 1935 in the Bronx , New York City ) was an American automobile pioneer and statesman.

Life

Willys started selling bicycles as a young man in his hometown and quickly expanded his company to the point where he also made his own bicycles. In 1897 he married Isabel Van Wie and a little later opened an automobile dealership in Elmira (New York). There he was very successful in selling Overland vehicles . Due to delivery problems at the Indianapolis manufacturer , he bought it in 1907. He turned out to be a smart businessman and managed to make the sinking star of society shine again. In 1909 he bought the Marion Motor Car Company in Indianapolis and a few years later moved all of its operations to a factory that he had bought from the bankrupt Pope Motor Car Co. in Toledo .

After he had changed the name of his company in 1912 in Willys-Overland Motor Company , John Willys bought the Edwards Motor Co. in New York in the following year and thus a license to manufacture the slide valve motors according to the patents of Charles Yale Knight . He succeeded and his company became the second largest automaker in the United States (after Ford ). In 1915 he built a seven-story headquarters in Toledo, the most modern of the time. Before the end of the decade, a third of all workers in Toledo were either employed by Willys-Overland or one of the many small suppliers. His automobile empire offered customers overland, Willys and Willys-Knight cars ; each brand had its own engine concept and its own price range. The holding company bought in 1918 the Moline Plow Company in Moline (Illinois) , the agricultural machinery, tractors brand Moline Universal and brand cars Stephens created. The following year, Willys also gained influence in the company Duesenberg , mainly to the factory of the Duesenberg Brothers in Elizabeth ( New Jersey to buy), where he wanted to make his new six-cylinder car. In 1920 he acquired the Root & Vandervoort Engineering Company in East Moline, another automobile and engine manufacturer, which was also a Knight licensee. This company became part of Moline Plow .

At the Willys Overland factory in Toledo, there were increasing difficulties with workers, which culminated in a wildcat strike in 1919 that shut the factory down for months. Willys introduced the vice president of General Motors , Walter Chrysler , as head of the Willys-Overland-work and he paid for that time, the immensely high annual salary of one million dollars. But Chrysler tried to push John Willys out of his company with a takeover offer, but this failed because of the objection of the shareholders. Chrysler then left the company in 1921 and founded his own company.

John Willys' companies were very profitable, but they were also heavily indebted, having either bought or expanded them with massive loans. In 1921 his nervous bankers forced him to consolidate to limit their risks. In order to raise money to repay debts, the Willys Overland factory in New Jersey was auctioned off to William C. Durant . _The Willys' New Process Gear Company in Syracuse and the Moline Plow Company and its subsidiaries were also sold.

With his debt back under control, Willys expanded again and in 1925 bought FB Stearns Company in Cleveland , which made luxury automobiles. In 1926, Willys introduced the Whippet brand , which was sold in the United States, Canada, and Australia .

John Willys was a respected businessman and ardent supporter of the Republicans , for whom he represented Ohio at the 1916 Republican National Convention . After Herbert Hoover was elected US President , Willys was appointed the first United States Ambassador to Poland in March 1930 , a post he held until May 1932. Alexander Pollock Moore was originally nominated by Hoover, but he died before he could take the oath of office.

The Great Depression of the 1930s forced many automakers to close their doors, and Willys' companies went bankrupt in 1933 . The following year, John Willys and his wife divorced after 37 years of marriage; Willys soon remarried, but died of a heart attack in 1935 at home in the Bronx.

John North Willys is buried in Kensico Cemetery in Valhalla .

literature

  • Beverly Rae Kimes (Editor), Henry Austin Clark Jr.: Standard Catalog of American Cars 1805–1942. 3. Edition. Krause Publications, Iola WI (1996), ISBN 978-0-87341-428-9 ISBN 0-87341-428-4
  • Beverly Rae Kimes: Pioneers, Engineers, and Scoundrels: The Dawn of the Automobile in America. Published by SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers) Permissions, Warrendale PA 2005, ISBN 0-7680-1431-X

Web links

Commons : John North Willys  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c Willys Overland Knight Registry: Stephens History
  2. ↑ a b Kimes / Clark, Standard Catalog (1996), p. 1395
  3. ^ Willys Overland Knight Registry: R&V, R&V Knight, Moline, Moline Knight History
personal data
SURNAME Willys, John North
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American automobile pioneer and statesman
DATE OF BIRTH October 25, 1873
PLACE OF BIRTH Canandaigua , New York
DATE OF DEATH August 26, 1935
Place of death Bronx , New York