Photo: Mecum
Before the onset of the Second World War, the American auto industry was a place for dreamers. We owe much of today’s hot rods to that era, in part because some of the companies in charge of making cars were filled more by dreamers than engineers. Like Willys-Overland.
The carmaker, officially dead a long time ago, was famous back in the day for the beautiful yet largely useless cars it used to make. Like the line it manufactured from 1937 to 1942, a line that has become known as the Americar: gorgeous in design, yet completely unreliable due to the poor quality of the engines and lack of spare parts.
When you have an aesthetically beautiful car with horrible underpinnings, hot rodders are bound to notice. Hence a great deal of Willys-based or inspired custom builds that have flooded the market since time immemorial.
The custom pickup we have here, based on a 1941 Willys, is one that is surely to stand out from its peers. Shown for the first time at the Detroit Autorama in 2006, it is now on sale as part of the Mecum Gallery Exposition on the sidelines of the Kissimmee auction in Florida.
Built by Legens Hot Rod Shop from Martins, Tennessee, the car is nothing like its former self. The chassis is made of steel tubes, and it supports a 5.7-liter Hemi engine with an intercooled Magnuson supercharger. And it also supports the stunningly beautiful body, of course.
Built from the stock Willys body, the new one looks completely different. And it should, as there were exactly 241 modifications made to it, by hand, some larger others less so.
Apparently, 241 nip’n’tucks are enough to make a car unrecognizable. They seem to be enough to change everything from the hood to the door handles, from the roof to the headlights. And enough to catch our attention every time it shows up in the open, even decades after it was first shown.
When you have an aesthetically beautiful car with horrible underpinnings, hot rodders are bound to notice. Hence a great deal of Willys-based or inspired custom builds that have flooded the market since time immemorial.
The custom pickup we have here, based on a 1941 Willys, is one that is surely to stand out from its peers. Shown for the first time at the Detroit Autorama in 2006, it is now on sale as part of the Mecum Gallery Exposition on the sidelines of the Kissimmee auction in Florida.
Built by Legens Hot Rod Shop from Martins, Tennessee, the car is nothing like its former self. The chassis is made of steel tubes, and it supports a 5.7-liter Hemi engine with an intercooled Magnuson supercharger. And it also supports the stunningly beautiful body, of course.
Built from the stock Willys body, the new one looks completely different. And it should, as there were exactly 241 modifications made to it, by hand, some larger others less so.
Apparently, 241 nip’n’tucks are enough to make a car unrecognizable. They seem to be enough to change everything from the hood to the door handles, from the roof to the headlights. And enough to catch our attention every time it shows up in the open, even decades after it was first shown.
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