West. Aust. Jeep vendor

[Mike Kelly]

This W.A. Willys dealer was certainly looking to the future as early as 1943.

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/a...earchTerm=jeep

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/a...earchTerm=jeep

[Mike Kelly]

Solvol is still around today

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/a...earchTerm=jeep

[Mike Kelly]

At last the Jeeps will be here soon 1948 and they are here, CJ2's maybe.

Jeep Cafe .. what next.. oh its Jeeps the pup https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/a...earchTerm=jeep

[Mike Kelly]

Our hero Willy the Jeep is up to more tricks

[Tony Smith]

Brooking weren't too good at predicting the future demand for Willy's vehicles.

Rather than returning to the Willy's Sedan, the Post-War market turned to the Jeep 4wd in such numbers that the post-war Jeep would be the company's golden age, and it wouldn't be until the 70's that the owner of the Jeep name (AMC at the time) would look at producing sedan cars.

[Mike Kelly]

Originally Posted by Tony Smith

Brooking weren't too good at predicting the future demand for Willy's vehicles.

Rather than returning to the Willy's Sedan, the Post-War market turned to the Jeep 4wd in such numbers that the post-war Jeep would be the company's golden age, and it wouldn't be until the 70's that the owner of the Jeep name (AMC at the time) would look at producing sedan cars.

Reading those funny adverts, I got the impression that Brooking were promoting post war Jeep sales rather than looking to sell Willys sedans. One major problem Willys faced was the arrival of the Land Rover which sold like hot cakes here. The 1948 to 53 series 1 model ( same w.b. as a WW2 Jeep, 80" ) sold approx. 10,000 units in Australia, with many more to follow . I think at the time, there was a preference deal for UK imports, to help the post war UK economy recover, the UK was in a bad state, broke.

[Mike Kelly]

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[Lang]

Those people who could afford a new vehicle and were on the approved list (mainly farmers) would definitely have gone for the "comfort" of a Landrover.
Unlike a jeep they could be used as the family transport eliminating the cost of another car.

It certainly came with its own problems such as a very poor power to weight ratio (overcome in some ways by the super low crawler gear sadly lacking in the jeep) In UK they were limited by law to 30mph because of their commercial category until about 1950 - didn't make much difference as that was about the comfortable natural cruise speed! And of course Lucas electrics. Fuel pumps and starter motors nearly drove reasonable men to violence!

It took quite some years before Landrovers outnumbered jeeps purely because of availability of thousands of disposal machines and unlimited spare parts. The greater reliability, reduced running/spares cost and possibly greater agility kept jeeps in the rural front line up until the 70's.

I think Willys were pushing it up hill to sell civilian jeeps against the flood of almost identical military vehicles coming on the market. By the time their heavier utes arrived Landrover owned that sector of the market with their long wheelbase models.

Lang