What goes better together than Lions and Jeeps, right? Apparently the Lion Country Safari founders agreed. I’d never heard of the parks until I ran across this ebay photo showing a child sitting in a Zebra striped M-38A1:
View all the information on eBay
Curious about the park, I dug through the interweb for more info. According to Wikipedia, the company provided drive-through park experiences. They were started in “1967 by a group of South African and British entrepreneurs who wished to provide a safari experience for families who would not normally be able to experience it. The park originally exhibited only lions. The original South Florida park is the only one remaining in operation. Lion Country Safari previously operated parks in Irvine, California (1970–1984);Grand Prairie, Texas (1971–1992); Stockbridge, Georgia; Mason, Ohio (1974–1993) and Doswell, Virginia (1974–1993); all of them subsequently closed.”
Given the sign above mentions “Laguna Hills” at the bottom, I think it is safe to assume this is the Irvine, California, park. Here are photos of the Laguna Hills park when it was running, here are additional photos, and before/after photos of the park after its demise. I found two more photos of the jeep above lead me to believe it was especially for photos:
This photo shows Terri Tolliver posing on the jeep for Western Photo Magazine (Neither a search for Terri nor a search for Western Photo Magazine yielded any results). An 8×10 of the photo is for sale on eBay:
As mentioned earlier, the park in Florida still exists. It has been voted one of the top ten zoos by The Weather Channel (do they know zoos?) and received other accolades. It even has (or had?) some jeeps, but they look like they are only for the kids, as this flickr photo from 2009 demonstrates:
After DFW grew up around Grand Prairie they changed the name and moved to Glen Rose, Texas. A pretty neat little spot to visit as well (hint, hint). I’ve visited both of them but honestly don’t remember much. One of those drive your own car down the ranch road and have antelope and such come up to your window. It terrified my kid sister for years. My dad always said it was a couple of wildcatters that owned the place. Those early oil guys really were wild, everybody now knows about things in Texas and they spent big bucks to prove that up. They’re still doing it.
I would like to have the Terri Tolliver modification for my M-38A1, are they still available.
Mark, the hint is received, loud and clear 🙂 .. I’ll put Glen Rose on our to do list.
Mark S., I imagine the Terri Tolliver modification is quite vintage at this point; you might consider a newer upgrade if you want to capture that youthful cowgirl spirit!
There is a Lion Country Safari a few miles west of my house in Florida…. I guess the town would be Wellington, FL. I’ve never been there…. but I would have checked it out if there were going to be old Jeeps there 😉
Bill
Glen Rose, Where Dinosaurs Roamed. Heck if you want to see wildlife just drive down 6th Street in Austin any night after dark. The two legged critters come right up to your car. It terrified my kid sister for years.
Big Bend is the ultimate Jeep country but we’ve also got dense forest, high desert, muddy bayou and sandy beaches. I know you like Western History so we got a bit of that too.
Oh, and there are a fair number of jeeps. Mark