UPDATE: II: Barry Thomas has updated his thoughts on this video at his Farm Jeep site:

https://www.farmjeep.com/2021/08/01/a-jeep-movie-that-was-never-released/

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UPDATE I From July 11/2021: This video was shared by the Goddess herself, Deborah. It used the 1954 Willys Export Company’s brochure as the lens through which is shows the variety of jeeps in this movie clip (in color no less). You can learn more about the various forms of this brochure below. This brochure did not have a form number.

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Originally posted January 12, 2020: As noted by Edgar Kaiser in 1955, one of the key reasons Kaiser bought Willys’ assets was that Kaiser didn’t feel Willys-Overland was pursuing the consumer market aggressively enough. As a part of Kaiser’s strategy to move that direction, the company created a wide variety of brochures, folders, direct mail pieces, product booklets, post cards, a Jeep family 16mm movie, and other merchandising materials.

Much of these documents have been scanned and available on the internet, but no one (that I’ve seen) has assembled them together to see what items were available at the time the CJ-5 launched.

So, consider this a draft towards that goal, as I still have some more scanning and locating of documents so I can interlink everything together.

To begin, here is one of the earliest examples of the Kaiser Willys team creating a standardized family of similar brochures that highlight each of the models. Nearly all the first wave of documents were created in 1954. How do we know this? Because the January 1955 Kaiser Willys Sales and Dealer News highlighted these merchandising aides:

Note that other brochures mentioned in this Kaiser Willys Newspaper include the upcoming  Jeep in Public Service (24 pages), the Jeep in Industry (24 pages, might have ended up this one?), and the Jeep in Agriculture (unclear to me which this is). I do have the brochure shown in the lower right, but it’s in Spanish. So, we can conclude that those were all published in 1955 (there are no publish dates on them).

Here’s an order form from 1955. It’s form numbers for the ‘vehicle folder’ brochures match those shown in the photo below this order form.

Here’s a photo from an ebay post that shows all the vehicle ‘folder’ brochures together (the form numbers I have for the vehicle brochures below match the numbers on the order form above). I only have 7 of the 10 brochures, or I’d take a photo of my own like this.

Form #s for 9 of the brochures in the pic above, and one not included (w-221-6): CJ-5 (W-239-5), CJ-3B (W-201-5), 1 Ton Truck (W-205-5), 4WD Station Wagon (W-221-5) (see W-221-4 here), 4WD Sedan Deliver (W-227-5), 2WD Utility Wagon (M-221-6), Cargo Personnel Carrier (W-215-5), 4WD Field Ambulance (W-228-5), 4WD Utility Ambulance (W-230-5), Jeep Fire Engine (W-229-5), and the Commando Fire Truck (W-240-5).

Below are some various brochure covers from the twenty-plus page brochures ….. (Note, one promotional document not listed in the order form was the Willys Story, 1950-1954).

1954 Willys 4-Wheel Drive Form W-1772:

1954 Jeep Specialized Vehicles and Equipment, Spanish Version, No form or document number on the brochure:

1955 updated version of the Willys Specialized Vehicles and Equipment Brochure (again, does not have a Form #):

1955 Willys Jeep in Public Service, Form W-991-5:

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A discussion with Barry Thomas of Farm Jeep has led to us looking deeper into the relationship between the Schenecker and the Glenn M. Rogers companies, which led to me finding this ad.

There’s no wind today, so just a few updates as  I need to get to work outside.

UPDATE: A twist on the 4-in-1 campaign shared below was the use of the term “4-Purpose Jeep” in some newspaper ads.

A few months after the introduction of the CJ-2A in July of 1945 Willys-Overland introduced the 4-in-1-functional vehicle advertising concept for the Willys Universal ‘Jeep’, which was an effort to quickly explain how Swiss-army-knife-like the new jeep could be. Perhaps, speculatively speaking, it was even a play off of the “4” in the 4-wheel-drive aspects of the jeep as well? Either way, for a short-time, in late-1945 and early 1946 Willys-Overland pushed the idea of the jeep as having 4 different functions for farm and industry.

I would argue that the campaign wasn’t very successful, or at least didn’t work for me, because just this morning I had to once again look up what constituted the “4”. In case you can’t remember, let’s take a quick look at how this campaign might have originated.

WHAT THE JEEP CAN DO: The earliest mention I have of the four functions was in the Saturday Evening Post’s November 10, 1945, two-page-ad, the first big splash of advertising for the new Universal Jeep, where W-O claims in bold at the top of the ad that the ‘Jeep’ is a vehicle capable of doing a “thousand jobs”:

Looking more closely ad the ad text, W-O never gets around to listing all 1,000 possible jobs for their new vehicle, but, after claiming the Universal “Jeep” can do almost Anything, the company breaks down the CJ-2A’s functionality into four categories: 1) As a Truck, 2) As a Runabout, 3) As a Mobile Power Unit, and 4) As a Tractor. But, absent from this page is the 4-in-1 branding.

The Four-Function Jeep: The very next month, Willys-Overland inches closer to the 4-in-1 concept by proclaiming in a second two-page ad on December 02, 1945, in the Saturday Evening Post, that the ‘Jeep’ was a “The Four-Function” vehicle.

Once again, Willys-Overland listed four categories, but this time a) changed the order,  2) softened the “truck” claim, changing it to a Light Truck, and c) softened the “tractor” claim, changing it to Light Tractor as the following category headers show: 1) Use it as a Runabout, 2) Use it as a Light Tractor, 3) Use it as a Mobile Power Unit, and 4) Use it as a Light Truck.

Still, as of December 1945, the term 4-in-1 still wasn’t used in the company’s major advertising campaigns.

The 4-IN-1 Jeep: That changed on January 19, 1945, when W-O published a third two-page-ad with the title “For Business Or Farm, The 4-IN-1 ‘Jeep’ Does More Jobs … Tougher Jobs“.

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Barry shared this June 1971 Ad from “The Progressive Farmer”. It touts the Jeepster Commando as a “Farm Hand” jeep, a term used as far back as the February 03, 1945, Willys-Overland Ad (at bottom). While off-road capable, I never pictured this model being used regularly as a Farm Jeep (maybe it was?).

From February, 1945:

Here’s a rare floating jeep mechanical pencil with an engraving of Archer Motor Company from Burlington, Iowa.

View all the information on eBay

“RARE!!WILLY’S OVERLAND*Archer Motor Co.*Burlington,IA”FLOATING JEEP”Pencil/Works. This is very close to mint if not. I didn’t find anything really wrong with it.This is for the most discriminating collector or someone looking for a center piece for a Jeep display, it’s the origin of the JEEP.”

I don’t remember seeing this brochure previously. It is 12 pages, but unclear how many cover the jeep line. I didn’t know Mitsubishi did a Fire Jeep.

View all the information on eBay

“1958 Mitsubishi sales brochure with Willys Jeep, Jupiter Trucks & 500 Sedan. Size is 8.25 x 11.5 with 12 pages. Bent corner, creased.”

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