Update: well, it turns out that my email was effective. I received a much more polite reply than my original message perhaps deserved.
They didn’t take my suggested alternative text, but rather chopped the phrase down.
Here’s what it looked like when it arrived (and no, sadly, they didn’t fix “by product”).
Now that I look more closely, that undercarriage is pretty weird looking. Where’s the pumpkin? This is, to my mind, why a more abstract rendering is better: the more detail you put into a sketch, the more glaring any omissions/mistakes.
But, I can’t get too upset with them: at least they used a TJ instead of a JK...or, heaven forfend, a JK with an angry grille.
I like this company’s occasional Jeep-themed apparel, if not its testosterone-driven political slant and website that makes it nearly impossible to browse its designs, but this affront shall not stand!
The email I sent:
Of course I’m going to buy the Adventurer, but as a Jeep historian I have to point out that there’s no such thing as a “Willy”. The company was called “Willys” not because of any possessive “Willy’s” but because the founder’s last name was Willys.
Also “its” not “it’s”.
So it should read: “Iconic 7-slot grille, an homage to its predecessor, the Willys CJ”(The wartime Willys MB/Ford GPW had 9 slots, after Ford redesigned the original mesh grille. It wasn’t until after the war that Willys moved to 7 slots.)