Willys-Overland began publishing the Salesbuilder magazines in July of 1948 with the announcement of the Jeepster. The Salesbuilder supplanted the W-O Sales News magazine. According to a small blurb on Google (I can’t read the whole reference), the Salesbuilder was part fo the effort to push the Jeepster.
I own a couple of Salesbuilder magazines, but those are the only ones I’ve seen. Below is a series of covers that I’ve been able to document so far. I’d like to find more.
As far as I know, Salesbuilder issues were published between July of 1948 and as late as August of 1951. By early 1954 (possibly January), Kaiser Willys had shuttered the magazine format for a newspaper format (see the March 1954, volume 1, issue 2 at the bottom of this post).
July 1948:
November 1950:
February 1951: (I own this one, but haven’t published it yet)
April 1951:
May 1951:
August 8, 1951:
In 1954, Kaiser Willys published the Kaiser Willys News. This is the March 1954 issue’s front page.
These were attractive publications for their time, eye catching. I notice on the back cover of the November, 1950 issue, is a mail in postcard for the Secretory Pen Co. Union, NJ, I assume they were the connection for the dealer free give away pens very popular back in those days.
So much of New Jersey in that era was industrial and manufacturing, kept taxes low. Today, all that is gone and few of us can afford to live in NJ.
The 1954 newspaper is jarringly ugly in comparison.
Dave,
There was a May 1948 issue. It covered the official launch of the Jeepster at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel in NYC. I have a xerox copy of it somewhere. Very interesting issue with Willys-Overland vehicles on display in the ballrooms using farm scenes.
The July issue covered ‘Jeepster Week’ when it was rolled out across the country and was officially available for sale.
Bill
Awesome. Thanks for posting.
Great info Bill. Thanks! It’s hard to believe that some of these haven’t been preserved somewhere.
Dave,
I stand corrected. The one you posted was the first. The one I referenced was issue 2. It covered ‘August and September 1948’ but it had a recap of all the Jeepster presentations. No 3 jumped all the way to April 1949. Volume 1 went from July 1948 – December 1949. Volume 2 started in January 1950 and became monthly.
Bill
Thanks for the info Bill!