Yesterday I received a book I purchased earlier this month called “Circus and Carnival Trucks 1923-2000″.  Though mostly about trucks, the book includes several pictures of jeeps.  One of the pictures shows a jeep modified into a performance  prop called the “Little Red School House”.  Essentially, it’s a mobile school house that can be brought into a performance and then quickly driven away.

Trying to find other examples of this, I discovered a great thread from the CJ-2A Page about a jeep ownerwho managed to track down the history of a early CJ-2A his father bought from the Ringling Brothers Circus.  After some help from the forum and some research, he discovered several photos of his jeep all dressed up as “Lilliput”.

The Illinois State University has some pictures of Lilliput.  Here are a couple.  You can view more pics and the entire thread related to the re-discovery of Lilliput at the CJ-2A Page.

1) http://digital.library.illinoisstate.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/circus/id/1073/rec/119

2) http://digital.library.illinoisstate.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/circus/id/908/rec/109 (you can just see the pto bar sticking out from the rear of the jeep).

Here’s another example of a performance jeep.  This is the “Little Red School House”. The picture is from the side.  The second looks more like a jeep.

3) http://digital.library.illinoisstate.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/circus/id/2651/rec/1

4) This picture is on page 50 of the book I mentioned at the beginning of this post.