10 Facts About John Willys

John North Willys was an American automotive pioneer and diplomat.

John Willys returned to New York and opened his first car dealership in Elmira, New York, selling Overland Automomobile brand automobiles.

Labor difficulties began to emerge at the John Willys-Overland Toledo plant that resulted in a violent strike in 1919, shutting down the plant for several months.

John Willys hired General Motors vice-president Walter Chrysler to run the John Willys-Overland operation at the then astonishing salary of $1 million a year.

In 1926 John Willys introduced the "Whippet" model line that sold in the US, Canada, and Australia.

The Great Depression of the 1930s saw numerous carmakers go out of business, and the John Willys enterprises went into bankruptcy reorganization in 1933.

In 2008, John Willys was posthumously inducted into the Automotive Hall of Fame in Dearborn, Michigan.

Well respected in the business community, John Willys was a strong supporter of the United States Republican Party who had been an Ohio delegate to the 1916 Republican National Convention.

John Willys died on August 26,1935, of a stroke after recovering completely from a previous heart attack that he had in May, at his home in The Bronx, New York City.

John Willys was interred in the Kensico Cemetery in Valhalla, New York.