UPDATE II: More history on the Worman company in the January 1948 issue of Wilys Overland Sales News.
UPDATE: This article appeared in the 2016 Winter edition of Dispatcher Magazine. The original of this was posted in October of 2106 as a series of notes, but is now updated with text from that article along with some additional photos.
Willys-Overland equipment manufacturers experienced a range of successes and failures. One of those who entered the market at the dawn of the CJ-2A to achieve the former was Laurel C. Worman, a businessman who created the first set of jeep hardtops for different applications, most sold under the brand Jee-Cab.
Early Willys-Overland branded Laurel C. Worman built hardtop.
EARLY YEARS OF LAUREL C. WORMAN:
Laurel C. Worman was born in 1898 in Toledo, Ohio, to Ernest and Clara Worman. He was the younger of two children. The boy’s father Ernest was a self-made man, who developed a large hardwood lumber business, something Laurel must have watched with fascination. When he was old enough, Laurel married Muriel Florence Jackson. The pair had two sons, Ernest “Ernie” William and Lester Lee Worman. The couple later divorced. By 1940, Laurel had remarried a woman named Ruth.
Perhaps Laurel’s father’s entrepreneurial influence led him to become a self-made man himself. While his early employment history has yet to be unearthed, by 1941, Laurel was president of Packard Toledo, Inc. Well known in Toledo automotive circles, Laurel later that year became a northwestern Ohio distributor for the new Willys Americar. It may have been the car that interested him most, but more likely it was the potential of the jeep, which had garnered automotive interest for more than a year.
About this time in 1941, Laurel C. Worman incorporated a company by the same name, under which he placed the Willys dealership. It was only one of several companies he would co-found. In December 1941, he went to Washington, D. C., as a dealer representative and gathered with other auto industry to reps to establish a ceiling on car prices, perhaps in anticipation of war. Four days after returning from his D. C. meeting, the Japanese struck Pearl Harbor.
The war doesn’t appear to have slowed Worman down. By 1942, he was placing ads in the Toledo Blade, arguing how “Willys Truck Owners Are Lucky!” Laurel noted that Willys-Overland had produced the most economical line of trucks. He told potential customers they would be well-served by the truck’s low use of gasoline and their rugged nature, two characteristics important for enduring war time challenges. Worman also made sure to note that Willys was the producer of the jeep, already famous by September of 1942.
As an automotive dealer seemingly in the thick of things in Toledo during WWII, there’s no evidence he formed plans for any jeep equipment. But, as a Willys dealer in Toledo, he certainly would have stayed abreast of the CJ’s progress and must have saw potential in the jeep following the war.
THE CJ-2A ARRIVES:
When the CJ-2A was introduced to the public in July of 1945, options included a front soft top ($55) and rear soft top ($39). The first civilian hardtop half-cab, according to Fred Coldwell in his Preproduction Civilian Jeep book, didn’t go into production until the fall of 1945. Somewhere around that time, the Army asked Willys-Overland to design a full steel cab for the late 1945 MBs. The result was a stretched version of the half cab, but it never went into production. One probable reason was that steel was in short supply. Another reason was that they were heavy.
In August 1945, Worman invited prospective buyers to visit his dealership and see the new “Universal ‘Jeep’” for themselves. The amazing “4-in-1” vehicle was advertised as a light truck, a light tractor, a runabout, and a mobile power unit. But, it still lacked the comfort of a full cab, a fact that must have been apparent to Worman as he engaged customers and sold jeeps through ’45 and into ’46.
Perhaps after hearing from dealers and customers that they’d prefer a hard top over the canvas front and rear tops, the Willys-Overland decided to contract with Laurel C. Worman to produce a line of hardtops. The hardtops would be made of aluminum, which, unlike steel, was amply available and light.
