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Welcome to eWillys.com, a website for vintage jeep enthusiasts. I update this website nearly every day with jeep deals, jeep history, interesting reader projects, jeep related info, and more.
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There are plenty of interesting, unusual, historic and surprising stories related to Jeeps and their owners. In addition, some of these features have nothing to do with jeeps. This link will display all featured stories starting from the latest.
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Importantly, the allure of buying a project jeep can be romantic. The reality of restoring a jeep can be quite different, expensive and overwhelming without the right tools and resources. So, tread carefully when purchasing a "project". If you have any concerns about buying a vintage jeep, or run across a scam, feel free to contact me for help, comments or concerns .
This early jeep pencil has the J logo, which wasn’t corporately used past early 1946, so I’d say this is *likely* from 1945 or 1946.
View all the information on eBay
“WILLYS-CARS, TRUCKS & JEEP/MASSEY-HARRIS *Henry L. Oldham Imp. Co*Blackwell, OK”
This is a rare pencil from early the post WWII era. The printing is slightly faded but well readable being the type of pencil it is.”
Cowboy shared this photo from Scott Ingram, who built a Tiny Trash Truck out of an old DJ-5 (Scott operates a garbage collection firm in Paris, Illinois). I don’t see an obvious seat, so this may only be for show. That’s something I’ve never seen done with a DJ-5.
UPDATE: More information on the goal of Kaiser-Jeep’s 1966 Eastern European Caravan. This article was published on page 7 of the May 14, 1966, issue of International Commerce, a US Department of Commerce Weekly magazine. In it, the Commerce Department’s ostensible goal was as an “imaginative technique to promote U.S. Exports”, as part to the U.S. Government’s continuing effort to promote East-West Trade. It’s possible the trip was underwritten in some form (cash or government favors or both) to encourage Kaiser-Jeep to participate.
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This September 1966 Four Wheeler Magazine article describes the scene when the Kaiser-Jeep sponsored Eastern European Caravan crossed into (then) Czechoslovakia, as a line of restored and refurbed jeeps awaited them. Remember, that no new parts had even available to these die-hard jeep fans since 1946, making their rebuilds even more remarkable. The Prague Jeep Club alone had more than 300 jeeps and 400 members.
The 1966 Jeep News Volume 12 Number 3 has more information.
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.
This four-page issue of the April 1964 Jeep Service and Parts News includes an exploded view of the T-89 side-shift transmission. It also appears to have a useful side image of how the J-series gas pedal operates, along with how to make adjustments (I’m not familiar with them).
The eight-page Jeep News Volume 12 Number 1 kicked off 1966 with the news that sales increased 23% and, surprising to me, special equipment sales jumped almost 42%. Given the increase in Wagoneers and Gladiator sales, I would think the special equipment numbers would be falling, as I thought a shift was happening away from the notion of utility vehicles in favor of “fun” and family vehicles. I’d be curious to know what was driving those equipment sales.
Page two is mostly dealer news, while page three continues a page-one discussion of the anti-skid, safely and traction capabilities of the Wagoneer and Gladiator jeeps. Page four highlights the use of larger magazine images.
Page five goes international and includes an article about Mrs. Welthy H. Fisher, an 85-year-old literacy advocate, who raised funds for a Wagoneer-turned-traveling-library, which she used to deliver books to folks in India as part of a function of Literacy Village, a program she launched at age 73. From her photo, I’d never guess she was 85.
Page six features Sinclair Oil’s Wagoneer, which traveled with a touring exhibit featuring a flatbed trailer with nine large animatronic dinosaurs. I wonder whatever happened to those dinosaurs. Here is a pic of them floating down the Hudson River circa 1964:
Page seven reported on the unexpected 4WD display at a Florida Airstream gathering of almost 1500 trailers. Mud had forced many of the trailers to be towed into the site via tractor, but the fact that Florida Outdoorsman John Wilhelm had a Wagoneer capable of puling his trailer into the site without issue seems to have spurred interest in his jeep. Page eight highlights the use of jeeps in Detroit Mine, something covered by Jeep News previously and other sources.
A big thanks to Craig Brockhaus for selling me some original FC-170 seats and his last electric wiper conversion unit, along with a few other parts. They arrived on Wednesday. The seats need some recovering and the set frames some blasting, but we planned to recover them in the same material that the bench seats will be covered, so we expect these are a good solution for us.
As for the electric wiper unit, yes the tour jeep is a convertible and we should rarely need wipers, but there have been times where I’ve driven through irrigation or other forms of water around here, so I figure it’s better to have working wipers than non working ones.
My hope is to use the stock bracket to mount the steering wheel, but I won’t know for sure until I can test-mount the tilt-steering wheel based on the seat position and dash. But, just having the stock bracket helps me estimate where to begin with the column mount options.
Meanwhile, I am also moving as much of the wiring and other elements down to the frame so that when I have to pull the cab, it’s as simple as possible. The cab floors and some interior dog house elements could use some blasting, sanding and smoothing. But, that’s not something I want to tackle at this juncture. Mechanics, so it can be safely driven, and a new bed are the priority.
The July 1963 Jeep Service and Parts News page three includes some important tips about towing a jeep vehicle with an automatic transmission. Page four provides an exploded view of a Dana 20 transmission.
On October 28, 1954, Kaiser Willys announced the addition of The Western Duty Snow Plows to the Special Equipment line.
Blaine spotted this thread on Curbsideclassic.com that shows some vintage photos of average folks and their jeeps.
