At a bustling 32-acre plant outside the Brazilian town of Sao Bernardo do Campo last week, coveralled workmen proudly rolled a pair of shiny new compact cars off the assembly line. Hardly had they done so when William Max Pearce, 49, general manager of Willys-Overland do Brasil, announced his plans to send the two cars—the first production models of the new Aero-Willys 2600—to Paris for next month's international auto exposition. Pearce and Willys had reason to be excited. The Aero-Willys is Brazilian from taillights to engine block—the first car to be completely designed, tooled, engineered and manufactured in Brazil.
Up from Jeeps. Only ten years old, Willys-Overland do Brasil is already Brazil's largest private corporation, boasts 10,000 employees and last year accounted for nearly one-third of the 144.000 cars and trucks produced in Brazil. But in a country racked by nationalistic growing pains, it has an asset far more important than size. Most U.S.-backed companies in Brazil are wholly-owned subsidiaries, and their top executive ranks are closed to Brazilians. Willys is only 49% owned by the U.S.'s Kaiser Corp. The remaining 51% of its stock is held by 48,000 Brazilians and Managing Director Pearce answers to an operating committee of five Brazilians and four Americans. Result is that while other U.S. subsidiaries are plagued by expropriation threats and nagged by gringo-baiters, Willys booms unmolested. Last year its profits were $6,900,000 on sales of $104,800,000. "The government," says an envious Yankee competitor, "wouldn't dare attack Willys. It would have 48,000 angry people to answer to."
Willys' strength is due partly to the foresight of U.S. Industrialist Edgar Kaiser, who in 1954 took the then-daring decision to enter Brazil's auto market on a partnership basis and personally guaranteed a $42 million Bank of America loan that provided Willys do Brasil's working capital. But it is due as well to enthusiastic Brazilians who decided that they could switch successfully from assembling imported Jeep parts to actual manufacturing of cars. The odds were long. One visiting U.S. auto executive, after studying the shed where Jeeps were being assembled at a six-a-day clip and learning that Brazil had no parts suppliers, dismissed the manufacturing project with the blunt comment: "You're nuts."