Rebantamized

Curbside Classic featured an Argentine descendant of Willys that I hadn’t seen before. The Brazilian variants are well known, pictured in all the usual books and websites. The pictured Rastrojero is a sort of four-door ute. It’s clearly an original design, not a modified Aero, but it did use the Go-Devil four and the doorhandles from the Aero.

Looking it up, Rastrojero began in ’52 as a Willys pickup with a modified front clip.

The adaptation changes the hood and front panel for an entirely different look. The headlights were peculiarly mounted halfway in the new front panel and halfway in the unchanged front panel of the unchanged fenders. The cab roof and door were also more rounded, indicating that Argentina had proper body-stamping facilities in 1952. The original separate roof was needed because Willys couldn’t buy the proper machinery in the postwar scramble to resume production.

The front of the original Rastrojero is a direct throwback to the Bantam prototype for the Jeep:

Bantam did turn out a few thousand units of this version, mostly sent to foreign countries via Lend-Lease. Some of them could have ended up in Argentina, which was a major recipient of Lend-Lease vehicle shipments.

Willys took over the contract because Bantam didn’t have the engineering or manufacturing resources for mass production. The Willys truck and wagon had a flat face with headlights inside the face:

Similar to the Willys version of the Jeep:

The Brazilian offspring had a more modern front clip, designed by Brooks Stevens who had done the original US truck and wagon.

This seems to be the best tribute site with a full history and an old TV ad for the 1970s versions of the truck and sedan.