Builds: Claus Rebuilds a CJ-2A in South Africa

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FEATURED JUNE 2010

Claus contacted me a little while back telling me he was from South Africa and asking if I’d be interested in seeing and sharing some pics of a CJ-2A he rebuilt. Absolutely, I responded. So, yesterday I received pics and a story of both his jeep and his brother’s jeep, which you can see here. Thanks for sharing Claus!

Claus writes, “Its winter in the southern hemisphere and unfortunately this means wet weather for us folks in the Western Cape Area of South Africa. Sunny days are few in this time of year and I/we don’t plan many trips. It must be said that the nicest days are however also during the winter months – not too hot and no wind. All very positive aspects if you are day tripping with the old vehicles.

So now for the jeeps – There are not many flat fenders left in this part of the world – quite a few numbers of CJ2a were imported during the 1946-1949 for the purpose of farming. South Africa was also one of very few countries that ordered CJ2a’s in 1948 as Military vehicles. At that time the Union Defense Force (UDF) ordered 289 units, and these came in fact all standard from the factory in olive drap. Not many survived as they had to work hard on the farms or in service. Some that did continue to “exist” where built up as challenge vehicles and so the numbers decreased drastically. To date limited numbers are on the road – we don’t really have a vintage “jeep” club in the country so it is hard to tell how many are actually “alive”. It has however emerged that many people start to convert back to the original spec CJ’s which is nice.

I consider myself very lucky and after about 12 years of intensive searching, both here in South Africa as well as my home country Namibia, found a beautiful 1948 CJ2a in very good condition on a nearby farm. The Jeep stood for about 20 years on bricks in the owners shed so it has worked only for about 2/3 of its life and those must have been gentle years, because everything was still in very good condition. To top it all it had a complete PTO and monarch governor installed. The pto is currently off so I can restore it. I was also very fortunate to pick up a set of early WARN freewheel hubs (seen on the later pictures) So that in short is the story of my CJ2a. Attached are photos for reference.

Photo1: My Jeep when purchased

Photo2: My Jeep during a short day trip on a nice summer day in the Swartland district. (It just fits so perfectly into the landscape – water reservoir and windmill)