In the January 14, 1952, Newsweek put out an article about the jeep’s versatility. There are some interesting tidbits, such as the Chinese’s nickname for the jeep was “the vehicle of 10,000 capabilities”. The jeep was used to spear barracudas in the Virgin islands, play tag in Yakima, ski via jeep-joring in New England and Ontario, Canada,, and in Burma it was claimed that a jeep was once used to pull an elephant’s tooth.
This photo and caption was also included in a seemingly random area of the magazine, despite the fact that the same image appeared within the article.
The Aero “1200 lbs lighter”, or “weighed 1200 lbs”? I can’t imagine it weighed only around 800-1000 lbs. That “deep sea diving Jeep” is impressive. I think I have seen some that must have been used for that considering the rusted out bodies pictured on eWillys some times. 🙂 I’d like to see more details of that suggested improved springs, body 2″ wider and 5″ longer, and 72HP under a “flat hood”???
Edit… OK after zooming in to read the fine print, I see their claim explaining the “1200 lbs less”. I had never heard that much weight associated to a regular CJ without a lot of options on it. My bad. Sorry.
Willys must have loved this free publicity. Wonder how many jeeps this article sold.
And what ever happened to the AERO JEEP, assuming this was a prototype, was it scrapped or is it sitting in a museum, or collecting dust in a barn under 99 bales of hay?