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Welcome to eWillys.com, a website for vintage jeep enthusiasts. I update this website nearly every day with jeep deals, jeep history, interesting reader projects, jeep related info, and more.
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This rare 1980 Malotte Manufacturing brochure for fiberglass bodies was an interesting one to run across, as it includes a couple eastern dealers (see bottom image). This might explain where some of the older fiberglass bodies in the PA/OH area originated.
These four pages were inserts into the brochure:
I’d say a good chunk of the fiberglass bodies in Ohio and PA came from 4WD hardware back in the day. Tom Kennedy made a good product and sold a bunch of them.
I agree, Bob. And we deal with a lot of customers in this region who have those bodies on their CJ. I was sad to see them close up here in Ohio.
What surprised me the most was the text at the top of the second page: “both for street & racing”. A CJ2A or CJ5 would be on the bottom of my list of vehicles to turn into a racer.
I brought a dash from them for my cj5 back in the late 70’s and I still have the dash,sold the jeep.
On the dash I was wrong I brought it in early 80’s.
Still have my fiberglass fenders on my CJ5, bought them in the early 80’s, out lasted the original metal fenders b y decades.
Bob, good to know. I didn’t know 4WD Hardware made bodies.
Prasantha, 4WD club racing was big in various places across the US from the mid-1950s through the 1980s. The PNW4WDA was a hotbed of racing. People often raced their street jeeps, but these days pretty much everyone who races has a custom race jeep. You can see some video from 2017 racing here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycNI7rSButQ . I loved racing my custom flattie back in the 1980s.
David,
Thanks for the info and the video. I had never seen that. I shouldn’t be surprised as people will race anything. Whenever I thought about people racing Jeeps, I would always picture the Jeep rolling over. But, as shown in the video, that’s not always the case.
You are welcome. They definitely do roll sometimes … I’ve rolled one while testing my original jeep for racing. But, with the required roll cage and safety equipment (the PNW4WDA has a variety of safety specifications for racing jeeps), they are pretty safe machines. 🙂
Looks like this post is a couple years old but pretty cool to see stuff like this still floating around. This was my Grandfather’s business. I grew up running around the shop. Over the years they made many things to include Jeep and Land Cruiser parts.
Andrew,
Thanks for the note. I’ve been doing my best to try and preserve some of aftermarket jeep stuff, among other things. Do you have any background you can share, such as how and when he got involved in making fiberglass bodies? Have any early brochures of jeep bodies? (sometimes the old brochures can help identify bodies folks find on jeeps.
Thanks,
– Dave