102-year-old antique car reported stolen in Door County, 15 months after the theft

STURGEON BAY - The Door County Sheriff's Office is asking for information to help track down an antique car that was stolen more than a year ago in southern Door County but was just reported this week.

The car is described on the sheriff's office's Facebook page as a 1922 Overland convertible. It's tan in color with black fenders, running boards and brownish wooden wheels, but no other specifications were given. Sgt. Investigator Chris Neuville told the Advocate the car did run and was in good shape when stolen.

The Overland was stolen in January 2023 from an outbuilding on a farm in the Brussels area, Neuville said. He said the owner is an elderly man who discovered the car was missing soon after it happened but didn't realize until this week the theft could and should have been reported to authorities.

"This was reported to us this week, and that is why we are putting it out," a post said on the Sheriff's Office Facebook page said. "It is a unique vehicle, and someone might have information."

Neuville said the 15-month gap between the theft and it being reported "doesn't make it any easier" to investigate, but he's hopeful the age, rarity and condition of the car means it is still intact, and possibly has been seen in public, instead of having been broken up for antique car parts to be sold.

"With it being such a unique vehicle, you hope it wasn't taken to a shop and sold as parts," he said.

Overland cars were first manufactured in 1903 in Terre Haute, Indiana, and Overland Automobile Co. was incorporated three years later. Late in 1907, Overland dealer John N. Willys came to the factory, wondering where were the 500 Overlands he'd ordered with a $10,000 deposit he'd placed, and found the factory in such dire straits that he raised enough credit to keep the company running, then later took a controlling share.

Under Willys' guidance, the company became Willys-Overland Motor Co. in 1909. That year, production moved to the modern former Pope automobile plant in Toledo, Ohio. From 1912 to 1918 Overland made more cars annually than any other car company in the country except Ford Motor Co.

Overland produced a string of 4-cylinder cars in the first half of the 1920s, but the nameplate was gone by 1927 when the Overland Whippet was badged simply as the Whippet. As a company, Willys-Overland would go on to see success in World War II when it won the open contract to make Jeeps for the U.S. military. But it struggled after the war – it focused on making Jeeps as vehicles for the public but sales were meager in those early days of Jeep – and was bought by Kaiser Corp. in 1953 and renamed Willys Motors Co., with the Overland name disappearing, although it's been resurrected for a handful of premium Jeeps and off-road vehicles.

Anyone with information is asked to call Neuville at 920-746-2560.

Contact Christopher Clough at 920-562-8900 or cclough@doorcountyadvocate.com.

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This article originally appeared on Green Bay Press-Gazette: 1922 Overland car reported stolen in Door County, 15 months after the theft