On eBay the other day there were these two different technical sheets from Willys of Canada Limited. The truck spec seems pretty straight forward, though the company labeled it a 126″ Jeep Truck (named for the wheelbase length … why wasn’t it the standard 118″ wheelbase?). But, the wagon had me scratching my head. Given the split windshield of wagon (I can’t tell if the truck has it), my instant thought was that these were both pre-1960 vehicles, especially given they both used the Superhurricane L-head.
As we learned yesterday, Canada didn’t have it’s own production plant until mid-1959, so if these personnel carriers are earlier than that, then they must have been made in the US and imported into Canada. The lack of the ‘hockey stick’ trim suggests they were earlier than the Traveller. Are they a precursor to the Traveller or were they concurrent to the Traveller? If the latter, why the split windshield and why wouldn’t they have been named ‘Traveller’?
Meanwhile, searches for any reference to the 126″ Jeep Truck or the Ten-Passenger Personnel Carrier haven’t yielded any newspaper ads or brochures.
Here is the Ten-Passenger Personnel Carrier spect sheet:
Here is the 126″ Jeep Truck spec sheet. Was it a coincidence that the J-300 truck introduced in 1962 was also had a 126″ wheel base?
Over the years I’ve heard about two Willys truck bed sizes, a shorter one and a longer one, but all the info I’ve read indicated the Willys Jeep truck beds were all the same size. If a bed was made to fit this longer wheelbase, it may have meant the creation of a longer bed. This might explain the rumor of the longer beds?
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