The article suggests that the Jeep Dispatcher only came in three models, with one listed as a “basic model with or without a top”. The marketing department must have decided that the single model with or without a top was better off as two models distinct models.
January 20, 1956, Pittsburgh Sun Telegraph
On the same page as the Dispatcher article was an ad for multiple jeep dealers in the Pittsburgh area. The new ad included the DJ-3A with the fiberglass-reinforced hardtop.
January 20, 1956, Pittsburgh Sun Telegraph
This ad published January 06, 1956, in the Nashville Banner only highlights three models:
A text only article announced the Dispatcher on January 13, 1956, in the News Pallidium, a Benton Harbor, Michigan, newspaper. It too indicated there were only 3 models rather than 4 models.
The top photo of the hardtop Dispatcher looks to have 15′ wheels, some had 13′, but both had 4 lug wheels. I always wondered why that was, any ideas? The person in that picture, difficult to tell exactly who or what type of character it is, A clown maybe, at any rate, not very complementary to the DJ3A.
The DJ3A Hardtop was always one of my Sweetheart Jeeps, Just viewed a post on one of my NJ vintage pages about Chicken Delight. The one in Fairlawn NJ had a fleet of white DJ3A’s with a plastic chicken mounted on the fiberglass roof. I bought one in 1965 for $250.00 when the sterno oven caught fire and burned the Jeep along with the plastic chicken. A new fiberglass roof panel cost me $120’00 delivered to my driveway. Those were the good old days.
I’m just going to take a guess as to why the 4 lugs. Like always, they were already available as used on the Willys Aero car models with 9X2″ drum brakes, different from CJs as well. This seems to be the beginning of the “crossover” models. Maybe the Wills enthusiasts with more experience have a better reasoning?