Production Facility Locations?

[Cobra5]

Correct if I'm wrong but there were 4 companies that manufactured these vehicles: Ford, Willys, Kaiser, AM General. Did Willy's start production at its plant in Toledo Ohio? I know production was moved to the old Studebaker plant in South Bend Indiana following merger with Kaiser. When AM General took over they moved down the road to their facility in Mishawaka, Indiana. So in all of this where was Ford's production facility?

[Mark]

I thought it went like this--Willys made them in the 1950's, then Ford made them in 1960,then Kaiser(which is the name Willy changed to)then AM General.I have the pamlet Ford put out maybe that will say the location

[rickf]

I think you will find that Willys/ Kaiser and Ford were all making them at the same time to cover the demand.

[muttguru]

Ford's first two contracts for the M151 were undertaken at Ford's chassis and transmission operation at Livonia.
As you probably know, Ford lost the 3rd M151 contract to Willys Motors and Willys morphed into Kaiser Jeep Corporation at the time of the 4th M151 contract.
Ford won the fifth, sixth and seventh contracts for what would be the M151A1. Because of the huge size of the contracts, Ford decided to utilize their Highland Park tractor facility and the two Ford facilities both ran M151A1 production simultaneously.

The seventh contract was originally for M151A1 vehicles but changed over to production of the A2 model in mid-contract.

AMGeneral won the next and all subsequent contracts, although Ford continued to receive M151A2 "product improvement" research contracts from the Mil. Although AMG became the government's favored contractor for the A2, Ford was retained by the Mil as a reserve builder should the need arise. It never did........

Willys-Kaiser prepared their bid documentation at Toledo, Ohio then when the bid was successful, production started at South Bend, Indiana.

Ken

[rickf]

OK, Forget what I said.

[Cobra5]

Thanks Ken. I've been looking through Ford history and they go as far as WWII production and than no mention of the 151's.

[rickf]

I love how Ken puts that little blurb in there, "as you probably know". He loves it when he catches me in a mistake!!! Thats all right Ken, I'll be watching.





And yes , for you newer people, this is a game Ken and I have played for many, many years. No hard feelings incurred.

[muttguru]

I love how Ken puts that little blurb in there, "as you probably know". He loves it when he catches me in a mistake!!! Thats all right Ken, I'll be watching.
And yes , for you newer people, this is a game Ken and I have played for many, many years. No hard feelings incurred.

[muttguru]

Hi Rick......

I've waited 20 years for someone to ask the question about production locations. At last.... I can post a couple of excerpts from this Ford Motor Company drawing from 1968

Ken

[rickf]

Is there ANY piece of paper involving 151's you do not have?

I certainly hope you have a plan for this trove of information moving forward, Unfortunately none of us have found the fountain of life yet and the way things are now I am pretty sure I don't want to live another lifetime! I always worry about things like all of your information going to one of these "museums" that turns out to be someones garage and the stuff gets sold at a flea market a couple years later. I have noticed that the military vehicle museums in the UK seem to be much larger and more organized than the ones over here.

[Surveyor]

Any other street markings on the map? I'm assuming the scans are from the same sheet which would place the track on the east side of Woodard. My best guess at the moment is the corner of B street and Woodard would place it around the parking area of the Model T Shopping Center Plaza. There is an oval more to the northwest but that appears to have been a circular drive to a an building that no longer exists.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Model ... -83.097197

[rickf]

Oh Lord, You gave a survey print to a surveyor! This could be interesting.

[Surveyor]

Side track - What can I say? I love maps. Ironically, I may not have been around all these years because of the lack of a good one. You may remember from a previous post that my father was in Vietnam in the late 60's. He was one of the 12 WIA mentioned....



https://www.google.com/maps/place/16°18 ... 7778?hl=en
Somewhere along the ridge running east to west was where they got into trouble.

I had an old quad map of the area with YD 123037 marked with some other excerpts of the reports for that day, ribbons, EGA, etc. placed in a nice frame for him for Christmas some years back. He displays it proudly. One of my better gift ideas.

[acudanut]

While we are on the Subject. Ford designed the M-151. Didn't they hold the copyright laws for 10 years or more ?. Why did they have to share with others so soon ? I know Colt bought the Armalite rights to produce the M-16 and they had a 40 year copyright license.

[Surveyor]

Got it. I can confirm that the Plaza/parking lot was the test track area. Water tower in "northeast corner" as per map appears in 1967 image.

1967


2014


Source - https://www.historicaerials.com/