Early Kaiser Era Blueprints

Here is something today that I hope interests and fascinates you as much as it does me. Previous to finding these two I had never thought too much about the pieces of jeep history that rested in the background like these two blueprints. Sure, they’re for two minor and completely unremarkable pieces of jeep hardware that people surely wouldn’t notice. Nor are they immediately familiar parts of a jeep that helped make it recognizably famous like a grill or an exterior body part. Just a simple rear body plate reinforcement for the ’54-’62 station wagons and pickups with the Super Hurricane Six and a master cylinder tie-in bracket (for possibly an M38-A1... the part number is listed as an MD-A...).

But not only are they pieces that when put together with more legendary engineering ideas that helped to make the jeep a jeep, but they are pieces of history.

They are the original blueprints put into a redesigned reinforcement plate and master cylinder bracket with the draftsman and engineer’s signature and initials, dated and have tremendous bits of detail such as the dated Willys Engineering Department’s stamp on the backs, the Toledo Blueprint and Paper Co. identification of November 1952 and the best little part of jeep history. The word ‘Overland’ has been whited out of the company name at the bottom of the blueprint showing signatory proof of Kaiser’s recent acquisition and renaming of the old Willys-Overland Motors.

I can only wonder how many more pieces like these still exist. I came across them as a bonus extra in some parts catalogues that I bought. Wow! They are better than the catalogues AND they gave them to me for free! Rest assured they are a good home now. One is pretty badly beaten up and creased but the other is like new. You can click on the thumbnails above to download the high resolution scans, but be forewarned they are huge files! Each is about 500 MB in size!

Hope that you’ve enjoyed these! Check them both out here in the Miscellanea section and be warned they’re still big scans! Come back next for more of the wide world of the jeep and its history! I’ll be listing some miscellaneous stuff that I have to scan while I gear up for a new project!