“The Willy’s Wagon is credited as being the first commercial SUV,” says Mark Allen, head of Jeep Design. “They weren’t trying to make an SUV. They were just trying to make a station wagon. It was marketed as the first all steel station wagon, funnily enough. But when they added four-wheel drive to it, that became really the first of what we know of as the SUV that’s going on today. The Willys Jeep Station Wagon, Jeep Utility Wagon and Jeep Panel Delivery are automobiles produced by Willys and Kaiser Jeep in the United States from 1946 to 1964 then later with production in Argentina and Brazil continuing until 1970 and 1977 respectively. This was the next to last year of US production. They were the first mass-market all-steel station wagons designed and built as a passenger vehicle.

With over 300,000 wagons and its variants built in the U.S., it was one of Willys’ most successful post-World War II models.

The 2WD was sold as “Station Wagon”, while the 4WD was marketed as “Utility Wagon”. The 4WD Willys Jeep Wagon is often considered the first production sport utility vehicle.

The Jeep Wagon was designed in the mid-1940s by industrial designer Brooks Stevens. Willys did not make their own bodies, car bodies were in high demand, and Willys was known to have limited finances. Brooks therefore designed bodies that could be built by sheet metal fabricators who normally made parts for household appliances and could draw sheet metal no more than 6 inches (152 mm).

The steel body was efficient to mass-produce, easier to maintain and safer than the real wood-bodied station wagon versions at the time. Within the first two years of the Jeep Wagon’s production, the only manufacturer in the United States with a station wagon that was comparable in price was Crosley, which introduced an all-steel wagon in 1947.

The Jeep Wagon was the first Willys product with independent front suspension. Barney Roos, Willys’ chief engineer, developed a system based on a transverse seven-leaf spring. The system, called “Planadyne” by Willys, was similar in concept to the “planar” suspension Roos had developed for Studebaker in the mid-1930s.