Willys-Knight

Willys-Knight was an automobile built between 1914 and 1933 by the Willys-Overland Company of Toledo, Ohio. John North Willys bought the Edwards Motor Car Company of Long Island, New York, in 1913 and moved the operation to Elyria, Ohio, into the plant that had built the Garford automobile; production began with a four-cylinder model in the 2,500 dollar price range. Its defining feature was the Knight sleeve valve engine, generally in four- and six-cylinder form, and a sleeve-valve V8 was sold from 1917 to 1919. Assembly moved to Toledo in 1915 while the engines were still made in Elyria. After 1922 output averaged 50,000 cars a year, and Willys also bought Stearns-Knight of Cleveland, Ohio, whose cars used the same engine. Production ended in November 1932, model year 1933, when the company, in receivership, stopped building higher priced cars to concentrate on the cheap but durable Willys 77. Seven Willys-Knight vehicles, among them two large trucks and a touring car, served on the Martin and Osa Johnson photographic safari in Africa.