The Overland
Terre Haute, Indiana
A 5 horsepower, single cylinder powered car passed its testing in Terre Haute, Indiana on February 12th 1904 and was placed into production as the Overland. By the end of the year the company had produced 12 more of the Claude E. Cox designed cars. The Overland Company was started in late 1903, when Cox and the then president of Terre Haute’s Standard Wheel Company, Charles Minshall, came up with the name over coffee one morning. Cox was a recent graduate of the Ross Polytechnic Institute, likewise of Terre Haute, and had completed a thesis where he made a four wheeled car from a three wheeled one. Despite this shaky start, Overland was destined for big things.
By 1905 the company was in the middle of designing both a two cylinder and four cylinder engine. The chassis for these two engines was to incorporate a steering wheel, instead of a tiller, and a drive shaft, instead of a chain. The company had outgrown its small space, so Minshall decided to move production to a larger warehouse owned by the Standard Wheel Company in Indianapolis. It was during this move that Minshall had a change of heart about the whole thing, since the company hadn’t made any profit, and he didn’t want to continue.
During the move, but before Minshall changed his mind, Cox was introduced to David M. Parry of Indianapolis. Parry was a carriage maker and had even tried to produce his own car several years before. When Minshall backed out, mid move, Parry purchased 51% of the company and the work continued.
Parry beefed up the production line and he also brought in John North Willys. Willys agreed to purchase all 47 cars made in 1906 and made an order of 500 cars in 1907. He even put up a $10,000 deposit. When the cars didn’t arrive during the stock market panic of ‘07 and when his letters began going unanswered, Willys took a trip from Elmira, New York to Indianapolis to try and figure out what had happened.
When Willys arrived in Indianapolis he found the Overland Company in a dire situation. Parry had lost everything, even his own home, in what would become known as the Panic of ‘07. In the factory he found only enough parts to complete three cars. Willys took over. In 1908 the Overland company lost its production building. This didn’t stop John North Willys. He simply rented a circus tent, moved production to a field outside of Indianapolis and produced 465 cars in 1908.
Late in 1909 Willys purchased an idle factory in Toledo, Ohio and moved the show. The fast pace Willys was setting angered Claude Cox and he left the company in January. By the end of 1909 Overland produced 4,907 cars. In 1910 the company produced 15,598 cars. In 1917 Willys set his sights on the only company he viewed as his competition, Ford. He began production on a four cylinder car with a sale price of $500. From 1912 until the end of World War 1 the only company to outproduce the Overland was Ford.
When the post war recession hit, the Overland Company found itself, like so many car companies in a very bad place. Willys needed money to stay afloat. Enter Chase Manhattan and Walter Percy Chrysler. The restructuring that followed bank involvement would see Chrysler take a million dollar salary, while cutting Willys to $75,000. After two years of cost cutting measures, Chrysler left the now named Willys Corporation to perform the same job at Maxwell-Chalmers. Through a series of moves John North Willys found himself once again at the top of Overland. At one point the company was running a 20 million dollar defict, but Willys now had a company with a 20 million dollar surplus.
Realizing that taking on Ford was what almost ended his company, Willys dropped any ideas he had of out doing Ford at Ford's own game and instead brought back a line of Overlands and Willys that sold in the $700 range. These cars were a little more refined than the cheaper Fords and Chevrolets and were a little prettier too. They had names like Blue Bird and Red Bird. The strategy worked and sales went from 48,016 cars in 1921 to 215,000 in 1925.
In 1927 Willys introduced the Whippet and dropped the Overland name. The start of the Great Depression would see the company focus on producing cars with only the Willys name by 1931. In 1935 John North Willys died and the man that saved Overland in 1907 by building them in circus tents was not around to see the name brought back, for a short time, in 1941.
By: Chris Breeden