The Design

The Engine

The vehicle was offered with several options of inline-six engines over the course of its production run. The BF-161 (2.6L Single Barrel Carb. 90hp.), the 2600 (2.6L Dual Barrel Carb. 130hp.) and the 3000 (3.0L Dual Carb. 140hp.). These engines were evolutions of the F4-134 Hurricane used in both the Jeep CJ, and the Willys Jeep Pickup. The BF-161 engine was made entirely in Brazil, thus signifying the "B" in the name. The plant was located in Sao Bernardo do Campo, Sao Paulo, and opened production on March 7th 1958 to begin producing components for the 58' Willys Rural.

F-Head Engine

The letter F is to signify that there is one set of valves on the top of the block like a Flathead (L Head) and one set of valves in the head itself, similar to a modern OHV engine.

Willys designed the engine in this way because they were adapting the design from an L head block. In order to accommodate the much taller head, they reduced the size of the combustion chamber, thus boosting the compression ratio and engine output.