I’ve been going through old photos, from both my collection and my parents, to discard the ones that will mean nothing to anyone else (and save my kids from having to throw them out later). Among the photos were some of these early pics of my first jeep, which I eventually called the “Great Escape”.

I started building it when I was 20, a rig for racing, street, and trail. It was built on a part-time cook’s salary, so most everything was hand-me-down parts or hand built parts (example: the spring-shock plates were hand-saw cut from very old railroad-tie plates similar this. Why? Because it was steel we had laying around the garage. The ones we had were about a half-inch thick.

The earliest build pics:

Together and running with the original, used, mini-terra tires (also marketed as mini-terror tires):

Testing in our pasture:

Some other details: Buick V-6 225 semi-built engine with (eventually) a 4-barrel 390 carb. It had a T-15 transmission, Dana 20 TC with Dana 18 gears (with the Bronco tc gear added). Dana 30 in the front. Dana 44 mail jeep rear (had posi in the rear) with spacers so that 1972-1975 Dana 44 CJ-5 rear axles could be used. The body is a light fiberglass body that was first used as a desert racer in the late 1970s, before sitting outside for six years. The frame was from an M-38a1. The roll cage came with that body, to which I added some strength. The rear springs were from a Pinto station wagon and were outboarded. The front springs were from a wrangler(?) and had reversed shackles. The gas tank was from a 1960s mail jeep I believe.

The pics were taken at the Oregon Coast sand dunes in the summer of 1985 with a few folks from the Wandering Willys Jeep Club, to which I belonged at the time. By this time, I had gathered the money I needed to upgrade to brand new Desert Dog tires and rims; those tires were definitely an upgrade.

That’s me standing just behind Otis (the blue jeep):

During August of 1985 I raced at Summer Convention. The only photo I have, which shows me after a cross-country race full of mud, was taken by a stranger, who entered it into a county fair competition in Snohomish County. Friends saw the pic and obtained a copy for me.

In September of 1986, me and a friend drove the jeep from San Juan Island to the Beverly Sand Dunes via the Naches Pass (a trip I detail in my first book, Finding Virginia). This first pic shows the beginning of the Naches Trail (as of 1986):

Stuck in a mud hole. It looks some winching to get us out of there!

To get out using the winch and keep the battery from dying, I had to power the engine and wheels. The result was a mess, as the picture shows. Of course, all of our stuff was on the back of the jeep, which got caked in mud.

At some point on the trip I broke the fender (that’s a long story detailed in the book); you can just see my right hand pressing it down. I also broke the grille:

Our campsite at the Beverly Sand Dunes in Eastern Washington:

This pic, also from the sand dunes, shows the grille damage:

This next pic shows some random location in Eastern Washington the next day. You can see I cobbled together the grille; the broken parts didn’t stop us:

We hit CDA about 4pm later that day, then turned around and headed back to Western Washington. The drive over highway 2 pass at 2AM in the morning was cold and dark (no heater and poor head lights). However, we did make the 6am in Anacortes for our trip back to San Juan Island (I had to work later that day).

In mid-October, the season at Roche Harbor ended. My buddy Cullen and I drove to my parents house where I did a quick remake of the jeep. I repaired the fender, replaced the grille, added a top, and repainted the outside during the course of about a week. Then, we hit the road for a journey east. Without a heater, it was a cold drive at times. I remember the windshield fogging up while driving north to Bellingham, which made the highway drive more difficult. This pic below shows waking up at a buddy’s place in Bellingham.

Here’s my great aunt and uncle in Orville, WA, where we stayed a week. Not only did I have to repair my jeep, but I also fixed his stock, circa 1957 CJ-5 (Oh, I wish I had gotten that). I got it running and drove it a bit (no pics of that left).

From there we drove to CDA. Cullen would fly down to Oregon, while I drove south to Wash State Univ to visit a friend, before turning west to drive through southwest Washington. In this pic, I am lost. None of these roads were on my map. So, I used the sun to estimate where to go, as, I was heading to western Oregon:

At some point, I overheated. This wasn’t an uncommon event. I let it cool, then was back on my way.

I ended the trip at the Oregon Dunes (I used to have a few pics of that, but don’t know where they went), then drove back to my parents in Renton.

The next spring, I went back up to work at Roche Harbor in the San Juan Islands. In tow, was a Hobie Cat that I bought and repaired. That would lead to another adventure later that summer.

Here’s where I parked the jeep and my camper during the summer of 1987 just up the hill from Roche Harbor (sadly, an area now full of houses):

That summer, fate dealt a cruel blow. While my buddy was driving the jeep, something happened that caused the engine to drive a rod through the side of the engine:

Without time or a place to work on it, the jeep sat for the remainder of the summer of 1987 (having met a girl didn’t help, as I had even less time). During the winter of 1987 I replaced the engine with a Buick 231, but it never had the same power. Moreover, the girl and college loomed, sealing the doom of my jeep-life. It spent the next five years mostly parked under this lean-to.

In 1992, I sold it to pay for a move to Wisconsin.

Of course, I thought I’d get back into the jeep world after college. Life had other plans. It wasn’t until 2007 that I bought another jeep. By then, the jeep world had changed quite a bit. Those changes, plus my own life changes, led to the formation of eWillys.