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Kurland Hubs and Kurland Histories

April 3, 2022 • CATEGORIES: Features • TAGS: , . This site contains affiliate links for which I may be compensated.
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One of the rarest type of jeeps hubs are the Kurland hubs. I’ve only had one pic of these hubs (thanks to Ted Jordan) until yesterday when Richard Darr forwarded me a photo of a set of hubs he acquired. This led me to a quick dive into the internet, which yielded the following.

A variety of searches related to “Kurland” and “Kurland Motors” yielded results in both Los Angeles (a city whose name appears on the hub) and Denver. In fact, there were Kurland Motor companies in Los Angeles, Denver, and Grand Junction, Colorado (also known as Kurland Junction Motors).

The Denver location was opened as early as August 1946, as an ad in the Windsor Beacon out of Windsor, Colorado, mentioned the new Universal Jeep arriving for delivery (soon).

1946-08-29-windsor-beacon-kurland-motors-ad

I couldn’t location much information about this Denver Willys distributor, other than Kurland Motors was instrumental in the launch of the Mile High Jeep Club in 1956 and that Kurland Motors, at least for a short time, marketed Kurland-branded bumpers about that same time.

Regarding Kurland Junction Motors, I was able to locate this ad from February 22, 1948, (The Daily Sentinel, GC, CO):

1948-02-22-daily-sentinel-gc-colo-kurland-junction-motors

Now, were the Denver/Grand Junction Kurland dealers connected to the Kurland Motors of Los Angeles that also sold Willys-Overland vehicles? If they were related, I have yet to find a connection. But, at least I was able to unearth more information about the LA Kurland.

1948-12-05-los-angeles-times-kurland-opens

CREDIT: December 05, 1948, issue of the Los Angeles Times

As the article suggests, the Transport Motor Company lost some key personnel. Perhaps Transport Motors had decided to exit its Willys-Overland relationship?

At some juncture, it appears Kurland launched a line of free-wheeling hubs. These hubs were stamped with 1) KURLAND, 2) Los Angeles and 3) Patent Pending. Unfortunately, I could find no patents related to the hubs. In fact, the only information I could find related to the hubs was a reference to a CJ-2A being sold with a set of the hubs.

1955-11-10-independent-long-beach-cal-kurland-hubs-ad

November 10, 1955, Independent News, Long Beach, CA.

Here are the only pics I have of the hubs:

KURLAND-HUBS-RICHARD

CREDIT: Richard Darr

ted-jordan-kurland-hubs-backs-lores1

CREDIT: Ted Jordan

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1951 Wagon and Trailer Trip to Ensenada, Mexico

April 3, 2022 • CATEGORIES: Features, Old Images Jeeping, Old News Articles • TAGS: . This site contains affiliate links for which I may be compensated.
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In 1951, Kurland Motors provided the Los Angeles Times automobile editor, Lynn Rogers, a wagon for a journey down to Ensenada, Mexico. A description of the trip was printed in the October 21, 1951, issue of the Los Angeles Times.

1951-10-21-los-angeles-times-wagon-camper-trip1

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Reviving a 1959 CJ-3B

April 3, 2022 • CATEGORIES: Features, videos This site contains affiliate links for which I may be compensated.
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Bill shared a video via Autorevolution.com that highlights the saving of a locked-up CJ-3B.

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Video: Saving a 1946 CJ-2A

April 2, 2022 • CATEGORIES: Features, videos This site contains affiliate links for which I may be compensated.
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Thanks to Chuck for sharing this video about saving a CJ-2A.

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Overdrive Differences

March 31, 2022 • CATEGORIES: Features, OD Other, OD Saturn/Warn This site contains affiliate links for which I may be compensated.
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Will shared pics that show some of the differences between a Warn overdrive with a Husky overdrive. Regarding finding Husky parts, my best guess for parts would be Herm Tilford.

Will writes, “A little while back there was a discussion on the different overdrive units. There where several different units produced and maybe others but the ones I’ve seen are Warn, Dualmatic, Saturn, Husky and ATV overdrives that all looked similar. Saturn is a direct decedent of the Warn as Advance Adapters purchased the tooling from Warn to make the Saturn. I don’t know much about the Dualmatic or ATV except ATV is still produced as is Saturn.

Anyway I had mentioned that the Husky had a different angle to the planetary gears, Sun gear and bowl gear than Warn. These pictures show how the Warn had much more tooth angle than Husky and as such these parts do not interchange and Husky parts are near impossible to find.”

IMG_8652 IMG_8651 IMG_8650

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In 1957-58 4 Italians Drove to Toledo the Long Way

March 30, 2022 • CATEGORIES: Features, International, Old News Articles • TAGS: . This site contains affiliate links for which I may be compensated.
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UPDATE: This was first posted in August of 2016.

This September 13, 1958, article from the Toledo Blade told the story of four italians who drove what appears to be a WWII jeep a distance of 80,000 miles from Italy to Toledo. The men, all newspapermen, planned to drive another 15,000 miles back to Italy. What a trip! I wonder if their counterparts in 2013 knew of their countrymen’s adventure?

1958-09-13-toledo-blade-italians-world-adventure1 1958-09-13-toledo-blade-italians-world-adventure2

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Re-Grading the Little House Lawn

March 27, 2022 • CATEGORIES: Features This site contains affiliate links for which I may be compensated.
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In another of the series of why-I-am-not-working-on-jeeps-right-now posts, the warm weather has allow me to get busy the last couple of days regrading the lawn next to the guest house. The previous owner had put a garden next to the shop. We wanted that to go, because it was in the shade most of the time and because it didn’t make sense for us in that location. In addition, there was a negative slop into the south side of the guest house. Finally, we want to add a walking path along the lawn side of the shop and install some new sprinklers (line were laid for this area, but, we have discovered, the growth of the lean-to-structure (at back) and the construction of the guest house a few years ago appear to have been built, in some cases, over the original lines. So, we are having to locate this sprinkler line as we go.

Here’s what it looked like when we bought the place:

little-house-south-lawn2
 2804-s-wilgus-prosser-26 copy

All those issues led me to regrade the area this weekend. Pulling up the grass turned out to be the most difficult part. So, I used my fork-lift forks to stab, then lift the grass. The result was this jumbled mess.

2022-03-26-grading-little-house-lawn1

Eventually, I got all the area roughed out, with the sod and dirt piled in one big pile.

little-house-south-lawn-dug

With the roughing-out completed, today I will spend some time using a level to see what other work needs to be done, mark the future walk-way path, and layout some additional lines and sprinklers.

Now I just have to find a place for all that dirt!

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Anyone Recognize this Seat?

March 26, 2022 • CATEGORIES: Features, Willys Wagons This site contains affiliate links for which I may be compensated.
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Dave’s been trying to figure out some wagon seats he has, but he’s got one seat that he can’t identify (he isn’t sure it belongs to a wagon).

He writes, “I do have one seat that I don’t know about.
Thinking it’s a jeep seat as I got with other jeep stuff but that’s no guarantee.
32” wide. Non folding. Some of original brackets cut.
Believe that part of rear bracket is original. Threaded holes into uprights.”

Here are some pics:
seat-1-dave-lores

seat-2-dave-lores

Meanwhile, Dave was investigating wagon seat differences in general. Neither of us could locate a good source of information on the differences through the years. However, using some of his wagons, he was able to surmise the following. Can anyone provide additional details on the seat differences or point to a good source??:

Per Dave, “Drivers seats are approximately 32” wide, on sliders. Early wagons did not fold (I only have a ’49 with which to compare). Some slightly later wagons driver seats do fold, but I don’t know when that stopped.

Passenger seat seems fairly consistent all throughout, about 15″ wide, long legs fold and tumble. Intermediate or rear narrow seats also about 15” wide, shorter legs fold and tumble.

Wide rear or intermediate seats as stated in parts book, 25” wide. Early ones were non folding, rear legs stab into floor brackets. Maybe also before mounting change became folding. Later fold and tumble.”

 

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Dec 1942 Foreign Service Mag Cover

March 25, 2022 • CATEGORIES: Artists/Drawings, Features, Magazine • TAGS: . This site contains affiliate links for which I may be compensated.
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I ran across this magazine on eBay. Given the cover, I couldn’t resist buying it, though there was no other jeep pics or illustrations within it.

1942-12-foreign-service-magazine2

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1953-1955 Kaiser’s Attempt to Standardize Marketing

March 20, 2022 • CATEGORIES: Advertising & Brochures, Features This site contains affiliate links for which I may be compensated.
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UPDATE: II: Barry Thomas has updated his thoughts on this video at his Farm Jeep site:

https://www.farmjeep.com/2021/08/01/a-jeep-movie-that-was-never-released/

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UPDATE I From July 11/2021: This video was shared by the Goddess herself, Deborah. It used the 1954 Willys Export Company’s brochure as the lens through which is shows the variety of jeeps in this movie clip (in color no less). You can learn more about the various forms of this brochure below. This brochure did not have a form number.

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Originally posted January 12, 2020: As noted by Edgar Kaiser in 1955, one of the key reasons Kaiser bought Willys’ assets was that Kaiser didn’t feel Willys-Overland was pursuing the consumer market aggressively enough. As a part of Kaiser’s strategy to move that direction, the company created a wide variety of brochures, folders, direct mail pieces, product booklets, post cards, a Jeep family 16mm movie, and other merchandising materials.

Much of these documents have been scanned and available on the internet, but no one (that I’ve seen) has assembled them together to see what items were available at the time the CJ-5 launched.

So, consider this a draft towards that goal, as I still have some more scanning and locating of documents so I can interlink everything together.

To begin, here is one of the earliest examples of the Kaiser Willys team creating a standardized family of similar brochures that highlight each of the models. Nearly all the first wave of documents were created in 1954. How do we know this? Because the January 1955 Kaiser Willys Sales and Dealer News highlighted these merchandising aides:

1955-01-kwnews-pg8-lores

Note that other brochures mentioned in this Kaiser Willys Newspaper include the upcoming  Jeep in Public Service (24 pages), the Jeep in Industry (24 pages, might have ended up this one?), and the Jeep in Agriculture (unclear to me which this is). I do have the brochure shown in the lower right, but it’s in Spanish. So, we can conclude that those were all published in 1955 (there are no publish dates on them).

Here’s an order form from 1955. It’s form numbers for the ‘vehicle folder’ brochures match those shown in the photo below this order form.

1954-merchandising-material-order-form-lores

Here’s a photo from an ebay post that shows all the vehicle ‘folder’ brochures together (the form numbers I have for the vehicle brochures below match the numbers on the order form above). I only have 7 of the 10 brochures, or I’d take a photo of my own like this.

1950s-willys-motors-equipment-catalog3

Form #s for 9 of the brochures in the pic above, and one not included (w-221-6): CJ-5 (W-239-5), CJ-3B (W-201-5), 1 Ton Truck (W-205-5), 4WD Station Wagon (W-221-5) (see W-221-4 here), 4WD Sedan Deliver (W-227-5), 2WD Utility Wagon (M-221-6), Cargo Personnel Carrier (W-215-5), 4WD Field Ambulance (W-228-5), 4WD Utility Ambulance (W-230-5), Jeep Fire Engine (W-229-5), and the Commando Fire Truck (W-240-5).

Below are some various brochure covers from the twenty-plus page brochures ….. (Note, one promotional document not listed in the order form was the Willys Story, 1950-1954).

1954 Willys 4-Wheel Drive Form W-1772:

Scannable Document

1954 Jeep Specialized Vehicles and Equipment, Spanish Version, No form or document number on the brochure:

1954-los-vehiculos-mas-utiles-del-mundo1

1955 updated version of the Willys Specialized Vehicles and Equipment Brochure (again, does not have a Form #):

jeep-specialized-vehicles-and-equipment-brochure1-lores

1955 Willys Jeep in Public Service, Form W-991-5:

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