The eight-page issue of the 1966 Jeep News Volume 12 Number 3 began with the 1966 Caravan of Jeeps organized by Kaiser Jeep to introduce the jeeps to Eastern European countries (See the next post about a story in the September 1966 issue of Four Wheeler Magazine at the surprise awaiting the caravan in Czechoslovakia).
Page two shows a photo that went viral, in today’s slang, of a Harvey Schaible in a V-8 powered jeep that flew into the air at the top of a hill climb that was part of a Play Day weekend with multiple local clubs attending the event. Page three contains various stories, including a good photo of a TWA-branded airport jeep. Pages four and five continue the story of the Eastern European Caravan.
Page six has fascinating story about the use of 2WD DJ-3As and DJ-5s RHD vehicles (the DJ-5 having been launched in 1966), some converted to automatic transmissions, for use as spay vehicles.
Page seven reports on the use of jeeps to travel a portion of the Oregon Trail between Vale and Farewell Bend, Oregon. Some of this area would be passable by I-84 in 1975, but even today some of the original trail traveled in 1966 is still evident (see this map, which shows a partial area between Vale and Farewell Bend).
Page eight has multiple stories, including a photo and short report on Mr. Diamant and his family, who were traveling in a Gladiator Camper. There’s a longer story and a map of their travels here.
In Rube’s Automotive on south 3rd avenue in Yakima in the late 1960s there was a news paper clipping posted on the wall from the Military news paper “Stars and Stripes”. It was a photo of the same hill climb event with Greg Anderson (mentioned in the article) in his Chevrolet Powered CJ-3B. The headline was “GO Fly a Jeep”.
Rube specialized in installing small block Chevy engines in Jeeps. I think Rubes Automotive closed in 1994 when Rube retired.
I remember all the Jeep Clubs mentioned. My neighbor across the road was a Jeep Jocky. The one club missing from the list is the “Mission Peak Rebels” from Ellensburg.
I can’t imagine touring Eastern Europe with Jeeps resulted in many sales given their political and economic situation at the time.
Interesting reading about surplus WWII Jeeps being privately owned in
Czechoslovakia. I didn’t think private auto ownership was allowed in many Soviet Bloc countries.
If we’re talking 1966, and world war 2 era Jeeps, Soviet Communist country, I don’t see how this was even possible. No doubt it happened, It would be interesting to know what connections Kaiser Jeep had at the time to pull this off. The other aspect, what was in it for the Soviets? they must of had something to gain.
Tom: I don’t remember the Mission Peak Rebels. Where were they based?
John & Mike: this is worth a discussion. Let me see if I can learn more about what happened in terms of communist bloc sales.
Dave, the Mission Peak Rebels were based in Ellensburg WA
Tom .. Well, learn something new every day! I”ll have to see if the PNW4WDA has a master list of all clubs that were ever part of that org.
– Dave
I’d like to see a picture of the of the jeep in the Hill Climb Photo landing.
John and Mike,
I’ve added an additional excerpt from the May 14, 1966, International Commerce, which shed some light on the stated purpose of the caravan: http://www.ewillys.com/2024/03/11/september-1966-european-caravan/
– Dave
I was just thrilled to see the XM715 prototype, predecessor to my 1968 M715 🙂 !