UPDATE: The press photo at bottom appeared in the January 24, 1944, issue of the Minneapolis Morning Tribune (seen below). It seems that Harvey Wilensky must have also won a bid for jeeps about the same time as Hyman Berg did.
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Originally Posted November 16, 2013: This photo shows a lineup of surplus Ford GPs for sale. The selling price: $750 at Wilensky Auto Parts in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
I remember Wilensky auto parts still being in business in the 1980s as my friend needed parts for his wc21 Dodge. They still had a lot of surplus and new old stock military parts. I don’t know what happened to it after they closed.
What city/state was this dealer located? What date is this photo? Since these are slat grilled jeeps, I assume this is one of the earliest sales of surplus jeeps, correct?
Steve: That’s Minneapolis, MN. The photograph was taken in January 20, 1944, according to this link http://collections.mnhs.org/cms/display.php?irn=10823654
For clarification, those aren’t MB slat grilles, but earlier Ford GPs. Why this surplus sale was taking place before the war ended, why in Minnesota, and whether other surplus sales had taken place in other parts of the country is unknown to me. I can’t imagine there were too many earlier sales though.
750 seems cheap now but i’d bet that seemed alot back then for jeeps that were probably hard used. a couple of them have bent bumpers. lemme know if you find your time machine dave!