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M151 year identification help

Boyd Collins

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All: My M151 is missing all data plates, even the one on the engine. The only plate is on the frame rail showing it was made by Fruehauf and has 4 numbers stamped on it. I am attaching the photo. It appears that the 4 numbers are 8377 or 8877. Thanks.
 

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1958 M274

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If I remember correctly, Fruehauf made the bodies for the Willys Motors (not to be confused with Willys Overland) M151s in 1963, and Kaiser Jeep M151s in 1964. They were the same vehicle built under the same contract, the name just changed sometime in late 1963 or early 1964. Also, I believe those bodies were fully undercoated from the factory.
 

rickf

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Willys never made the 151, the early 151's were all made by Ford and Kaiser. Not Kaiser-Jeep. The 151 has no affiliation with the Jeep, hence the horizontal grill. It was made that way due to a patent by Jeep on the vertical grille. Ford was the main supplier of the 151 with some built by Kaiser and Fruehauf through 1971 when AMG won the contract and became the sole supplier. There are no serialized numbers from the factory on these vehicles. The only serial numbers were the ones issued by the government and they were on the data plate and painted on the hood. Sometimes very careful sanding will reveal the original numbers on the hood or bumpers. A2's the numbers were painted on the dashboard and under the hood.

Rick
 

1958 M274

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Willys never made the 151, the early 151's were all made by Ford and Kaiser. Not Kaiser-Jeep. The 151 has no affiliation with the Jeep, hence the horizontal grill. It was made that way due to a patent by Jeep on the vertical grille. Ford was the main supplier of the 151 with some built by Kaiser and Fruehauf through 1971 when AMG won the contract and became the sole supplier. There are no serialized numbers from the factory on these vehicles. The only serial numbers were the ones issued by the government and they were on the data plate and painted on the hood. Sometimes very careful sanding will reveal the original numbers on the hood or bumpers. A2's the numbers were painted on the dashboard and under the hood.

Rick
You are incorrect. They are rare, so not many people know they exist. See attached pictures of M151 data plates marked "Willys Motors Inc." and "Kaiser Jeep Corp.". Willys Overland was bought out by Kaiser in the 1950s, and they changed the name to Willys Motors then. Willys Motors changed names to Kaiser Jeep in early 1964.
 

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1958 M274

Member
Steel Soldiers Supporter
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North GA
Willys never made the 151, the early 151's were all made by Ford and Kaiser. Not Kaiser-Jeep. The 151 has no affiliation with the Jeep, hence the horizontal grill. It was made that way due to a patent by Jeep on the vertical grille. Ford was the main supplier of the 151 with some built by Kaiser and Fruehauf through 1971 when AMG won the contract and became the sole supplier. There are no serialized numbers from the factory on these vehicles. The only serial numbers were the ones issued by the government and they were on the data plate and painted on the hood. Sometimes very careful sanding will reveal the original numbers on the hood or bumpers. A2's the numbers were painted on the dashboard and under the hood.

Rick
Also, Fruehauf made the bodies for the Willys/Kaiser contract, and I think Budd made most if not all of the bodies for the Ford contracts (both the early M151s and later M151A1s)
 

rickf

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Also, Fruehauf made the bodies for the Willys/Kaiser contract, and I think Budd made most if not all of the bodies for the Ford contracts (both the early M151s and later M151A1s)
You are correct on the body makers and I stand corrected on the previous post. I will have to confer with Ken in England and get some data on the numbers of vehicles that each of these companies made.
I am an old fart and still don't know it all.:-D
 

1958 M274

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You are correct on the body makers and I stand corrected on the previous post. I will have to confer with Ken in England and get some data on the numbers of vehicles that each of these companies made.
I am an old fart and still don't know it all.:-D
Willys/Kaiser's first contract ran from 3/63 to 1/64 9,025 units built cost was $2,780.00 each, and their second contract ran from 1/64 to 6/64 9,600 units built cost was $2,631.00 each. Information from Jim Gilmore
 

nattieleather

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When jeep still had the museum in Toledo back before they leveled the plant they had pictures of the M151 production line and of the vehicles coming out of the factory and parked on the grounds before shipping. I've saw them with both my eyes. :lol: It is my personal believe that they picked up making M151s to fill the void left from not making military jeeps after the M38A1 when out of production but that's just my humble opinion. Thanks
 

rickf

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From our all time resident M-151 expert, Ken the Mutt guru in England.


Hello Rick,


The first M151 vehicles were built under two contracts with Ford Motor Co. As you already know, Ford started work on the "new 1/4-ton" in 1952, resulting in the M151 being classified for production in 1959.
However, the research and development contract awarded to Ford stated that the ownership of the vehicle design would vest in the Army....even though Ford did all the design and most of the testing, it wasn't legally "their vehicle".

Under the competitive bid system for military hardware, when the second of Ford's contracts was due to complete, Willys Motors successfully underbid Ford and won the next contract in 1962. Because the design of the vehicle was owned by the Army, it was a straightforward case of handing over the Army-owned blueprints to Willys Motors....there wasn't the same sort of intellectual property rights like what we see now (just open the cover of any modern book to see these sorts of IPR statements now).

Willys Motors had won the contract from Ford and then won a follow-on contract. During their two contracts, the company was re-named Kaiser Jeep , so there were Wiilys and Kaiser-built vehicles, although essentially they were vehicles from the same company. Willys' first contract was for 8,000 units which was extended to 14,000, followed by a second contract for a further 8,000 units, extended to 9,000. With both contracts extended, Willys Motors plus Kaiser Jeep production totalled 24,000 by mid 1964, but by this time, the competitive bidding process had produced a new winner....Ford won the contract back again and held on to it until 1971.
The Willys-Kaiser contracts were :-
DA33-018-ORD-3941 Awarded May 1962
DA20-113-AMC-0846-(T) Awarded Dec 1962

The Willys Motors name was changed to Kaiser Jeep around Jan 1964. IIRC, Kaiser bought Willys Motors and subsumed that company into the Henry J Kaiser empire.

Hope this helps.....
Kind regards as always
Ken


I guess I need to stick to the mechanical aspects of the m-151's.:roll::roll:

 
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TNJMurray

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Great info !! I have a few other things that would be fun to put out there. The strait m151,s that I have had and seen over the years of demilling them have had differences some have a hole in the rear for the Jerry can upper strap to go through and some mount to the top like the standard 151 a1 and a2 , I've seen some with four latch battery box covers and some with the standard two. Everyone talks about there being no serial number on the body , that I do agree with but did you all know that the m151a2 body kits in the crate and it seems the last run of the a2 had a serial number plate welded to the body next to where your right leg would be where the fuel return and vent line is located. We cut up about 1500 new a2,s at camp Lejeune right out of supply , they had all the gear packed in them. All of them have these serial number plates on them . Do you all remember when zecon in Augusta Georgia hand the 300 plus a2,s for export only ? They where all rebuilt usmc a2s , they had the new body kits and rebuilt parts installed on them and they all had the serial plate on them. This numbers always matched the one on the dash. One last thing , I have welded on these late bodies before and I have found that the gage is lighter , the welds will blow through a lot faster then the none data plate bodies.I have a large collection of stamp data plates that we took of of the jeeps we cut up and I also have ford a2 data plates with the serial numbers on them of jeeps never built . As you all know ford lost the contract to amc/amgeneral but ford had already started gearing up to build the a2 . My father and George Pearcy from highland auto truck parts went to ford and purchased the left over stock , that's how I got the ford a2 data plates. The last a2s that amg built were in 1986 , they were for Pakistan . There were 1014 jeeps consisting of 1000 m825 106 canon jeeps and 14 m718a1 ambulance jeeps. We supplied axle shafts ,steering yokes and some transmissions. I was lucky to get to go to the south bend plant and see the last of the jeeps being built ! It amazed me how simple and hands on the line was that had built some many jeeps over the years . It could have fit it in most large high school gyms . I also got to see the circular line that built the bodies. Remember the plant was 3 million square feet !!! The sad thing was no pictures. I had to keep the photos in my mind !! They then took us over to the Mishawaka plant that they had started building hummers in , what a big difference ,it was a modern production line like you see on the history channel . The raw aluminum came in the door and out came a hummer at the other end. When I was there they were building ambulance versions for the Olympics in soul Korea . My father and I went back out to bid on the remains of the jeep production line , what a sight to see basket after basket on new parts , body parts , you name it ! It was hard to figure where some of the body parts went as when you brake one of the bodies down there are a lot of little parts that make up that body. Once again no pictures !!!! We bid on it all with highland auto truck parts and as you all may know king William from red river truck parts won the bid and all of the body parts went to the Philippines along with a lot of the parts. One last thing I will never forget. When I was inspecting all the parts to be sold, off to the side was a caged area about half the size of a basket ball court . This was full of all the data plates and the elusive 3m reflectors that we all can't find !! They told me this was not in the sale and slated to be scraped . O well . I hope you guys find this interesting please respond to any of it or if you have any corrections or things to ad. Thanks John Murray . Murco@tnjmurray.com
 

NDT

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"King William" Now I have heard it all ROFL Thanks for telling us the tale, this would have been late 1980's?
 

F18hornetM

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John, lot of history in that post. I would have liked to have had one of those 1500 new A2s in 29 palms in the early 80's. Ours were mostly beat up pretty good. Before Humvees of course.
 
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