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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.
These quick searches can help you find things on eBay. People list in the wrong categories all the time, so don't be surprised to see brochures in the parts area for example.
The links to posts below show jeeps grouped by models, condition, and other ways. Some of these jeeps are for sale and others have been sold. If you are unsure whether a vehicle is still for sale or not, email me at d [at] ewillys.com for more info.
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.
Looking for parts and not sure where to go? There are a variety of large and small new and used parts sellers both online and offline.
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 brochure, No. 761, highlights Koenig’s King brand of winches in a single sheet with three folds.
I picked this November 1960 Koenig King Winch brochure with a from number of 11-60 off of ebay.
Andy shared this rarely seen US Navy Smalley Port-O-Spot. It’s another odd utility vehicle partly built with Willys-Overland parts. Only a couple hours left in the bidding; the high bid is currently $3100.
“Made by Oxnard Heavy Maintenance & Mfg Co. Oxnard California. It has a Willys drivetrain, and it does run and drive.”
Mike shared this DJ-5-transformed-into-a-smoker (in the back) and grille (under the hood).
https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/734804307543868
“Pull up with this at your next party. Built from the shell of an old postal jeep. 18 ga steel welded in the cargo area(back) and sealed and all shelves (2) are on rollers so they pull out. Side back windows have shelf to keep things warm. Under the hood you have a 36″ flat top griddle for cooking. I built a fire box that only uses wood or charcoal. I used only hickory wood. Smoker is mounted on a trailer for easy towing. All lights on jeep except headlights work as they should .”
Bill shared this article by Tom Czekanski from the National WWII Museum in New Orleans, a place I have yet to visit (“yet” being the key word).
https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/shop-talk-three-jeeps
PHOTO CREDIT: 1941 Ford GP awaits assembly. Courtesy of The National WWII Museum.
Glenn spotted this Pat Brady coloring book on eBay. The cover shows a great illustration of the Nelly Belle jeep.
View all the information on eBay
“My Husband’s coloring book from his childhood.”
UPDATE: Happy May Day! Below are all the pages from this issue of the newspaper.
This unusual newspaper that popped up on eBay the other day. It was the seventh issue of the Northeast 4WD Racing News. There was no publish date, but one editorial puts this at roughly January 1976. It’s 14 pages published in a full-size newspaper format, so the pics are big! I’d love to see other copies if anyone knows of any (or knows how long this paper lasted).
(The images are extra large to allow folks to read the small text. Click on the image, then most likely you’ll need to click on it again to expand it to full size)
This is the front page:
This pics show that the M-38A1, M-170, Trucks and Wagons are covered by the catalog. I can’t tell if it covered all models, including CJ-5s, CJ-6s, DJs, FJs, or other models.
View all the information on eBay
“Vintage 1962 AMC Willys Jeep Military & Utility Vehicle Parts Catalog & Price List. I know very little about this, I am selling it for a friend whose family member was a mechanic.
The large book is marked on the front Parts List / Price Catalog – American Motor Company.It appears to contain two separate books from 1962.
The first is for the Jeep Military M38AI Truck Utility (MD) & M170 Truck Ambulance (MDA) – approx. 116 pages Continue reading
Likely from the 1940s, this seems a good price on an old amphibious model jeep kit. I have one already or I would buy it.
View all the information on eBay
“Welcome welcome for sale we have a VINTAGE U.S. ARMY AMPHIBIAN JEEP WOOD AND PAPER MODEL KIT BY MOD-AC, CA.Also know as the quack! This model has been started and has a few broken pieces so please review the pictures I believe it’s all here and if your going to finish it I am sure you can fix those pieces”
Mike spotted this MPC-brand model that allows for the creation of either a Funny Car or a Service Jeep. It seems pretty pricey at $230. I would have been all over this as a kid, as I built model jeeps, Barret-mobiles, and other 60s rat rods. Note that the directions for this are not original (printed off the internet) and the tires have been altered slightly.
View all the information on eBay
“MPC Bottoms Up Jeep 2 versions. Road service or Funny Car with decals, nice-Rare kit seldom seen on eBay and never reproduced. Looks to be mostly complete. Supersize pictures and judge for yourself. I counted 100 white parts alone! All chrome looks to be there too When I found this rare kit someone had already removed all the wheels from the chrome tree and assembled the stock wheels into the stock tires. Some melting had happened over the years. I Dis-assembled the wheels from the tires and trimmed all the excess from the wheels. Once assembled you can hardly notice.Also there is a small tire burn on the drivers door. There were no directions but I was able to locate them on the internet and print a complete set. They look original. Decals look good with no cracking. Item will be carefully packed and arrive as you see it here.”
Continue reading
The Maine Willys Sales Co, appears to have launched in 1946 in Bangor, Maine. By 1949, the company was located in multiple Maine cities, including Bangor, Rockland, Lewiston, Portland, and Augusta. At some point, circa 1949, the Augusta branch sold six jeeps to the Forestry Department. The below image posted to the Forest Fire Lookout Association’s FB page documents this purchase:
Here’s an ad from the March 30, 1949, issue of the Bangor News. Note that multiple cities are listed under Maine Willys Sales:
It’s likely that 1949 wasn’t kind to the Maine Willys Sales Company, because the February 09, 1950, issue of the Bangor Daily News reported that Chrysler had taken over the Maine Willys Sales Company property, though nothing was mentioned about what happened to the company.
Later that year, on June 15, 1950, a large ad appeared in the Bangor Daily News, but only the Maine Willys Sales Company of Rockland appeared on this list of dealers.
The above ad strongly suggests that Maine Willys had dwindled to just one city in Maine by the summer of 1950. The company’s name was rarely seen in the newspapers after this ad.
The last reference I found for the company was for a July 11, 1953, article in the Bangor Daily News that mentioned an accident where a driver backed into the Rockland Maine Willys Sales showroom, shattering two large windows.
In his Conner’s Corner column for the Lewiston Evening News on October 16, 1945, Sam Conner didn’t have a “Kind Word For Jeep”, at least in regards to the pounding ride it offered. It was a fair complaint.
UPDATE: When we left for Seattle Friday morning there was no nest. However, upon returning from Seattle robin had fully rebuilt the nest (that would be the third nest in three days). So, grabbed some fending wire and have temporarily installed it over the cross beam. I think the problem is solved for now …
Yesterday on my way out to the shop I noticed a new addition: a Robin’s nest2. That’s it is over the sign really ticks me off. So, I checked for eggs (because I’m not a monster) and, not seeing any, I removed the nest.
This morning, I see ol’ bird-brain back at it, rebuilding the nest in the exact same spot (see pics of the new nest being rebuilt below). Well, that ain’t happening! Looks like there will be a battle of wills!
This rare wagon brochure popped up on eBay. It’s the first time I’ve seen this one. When fully opened, it is only about 6″ x 9″. the brochure introduces the ‘Jeep’ Station Sedan wagon sporting the lightening inline 6.
This is the front page:
This is the back:
This brochure opens horizontally to reveal this page:
This shows the backside fully opened:
I don’t have a specific date for this brochure, but it shows that Cutlas Manufacturing was selling a couple different types of wheel covers, including the “J” covers. It is marked Form 105, but is not dated. This was likely published between 1963-1965.
Maury shared this example of a factory photo with the “J” hubcaps. He says, to the best of his knowledge, this was a 1966 CJ-5 factory photo:
Blaine spotted some jeeps on this blogging website with an Oregon State focus. This first photo shows an FC in the background.
This next photo shows an early wagon at the 1948 Strawberry festival:
PHOTO CREDIT: https://www.stumptownblogger.com/2020/02/strawberry-festival-parade-passes-through-lebanon-in-1948.html
This photo shows an ad which appeared in magazines, including early Four Wheeler Magazines, so I’m not sure why it appears in this blog.
UPDATE: Grant spotted this video whose first segment includes the music at the bottom and glimpses of some early prototype jeeps (Bantams various points, mostly between :30 and 2:20 and a Ford GP around mark :50):
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Originally published March 27, 2019: Carl pointed out that the 1944 sheet music for “The Caissons Go Rolling Along” sheet music included a jeep on the cover (#1 below). After some searching on eBay, some other popped up. I bought the bottom one that features the Ford GP and Willys MA.
Another little treasure found while looking through the family stuff is this card drawn on heavy stock paper by my aunt. An architect, she was famous within the family for the cards she produced.
The card below was drawn for my dad’s birthday, likely mid 1970s. No doubt folks can relate to it (though I teased my aunt during a phone call yesterday about the poorly drawn jeep … she is usually attentive to details).
On Friday, Ann and I headed over to Seattle to help wind down mom’s house and clean up what’s left (spoiler alert, still more to do …).
The house is pretty much ready to sell, though we still have some odds and ends to remove. We had though the house would hit the market this week, but it turns out that there is a title snag with one of the two parcels. One parcel was some land and the house, while the other parcel was just a piece of land. The land’s title wasn’t filed correctly, so we have to fix that (and of course everyone related to the title purchase and payments has died).
Among the items I brought home on this trip was a surprising collection of dad’s baby congratulations, cards, letters, and wester union cables, from 1933. Also in the mix were condolence letters from the death of my aunt Anita (apparently, my grandfather said Anita was shorthand for ‘little Ann’ (Ann was my grandmother’s name, which I thought was a sweet reference) when she was only 13 in 1944.
Some of the more surprising letters and postcards were from my great grandmother (Leonie Wurlitzer Eilers), who sent my father letters, whom she addressed as Master Karl E. Eilers, II. This rather weighty title for someone under 10 years old partly reflects the fact that Dad was named after his grandfather (and Leonie’s husband) of the same name.
Another surprise was that my grandfather wrote a letter to dad in 1971 a month before he passed. In the letter he discussed his prostate cancer and the pain of urination. He still had three weeks to go before he expected to be done with his treatment (unfortunately, he didn’t last much longer).
Bill shared this post about a rough CJ-3B that was rebuilt into a CJ-2A-looking jeep. The result looks good, but it is also a good reminder that what appears to be a particular model may not be so thanks to the interchangeability of parts.
PHOTO CREDIT: Dutch and Curbside Classic
This R.B. Macbride Ashtray sold on eBay for just over $20. R.B. Macbride was a long time vehicle dealer in Modesto, California, that didn’t get a jeep dealer agreement until early 1957. Here are photos of the ashtray.
This January 17th, 1957, article in the Modesto Bee shares the news about Macbride’s Willys Jeep dealership:
Later that same year, on July 17th, the Modesto Bee ran an ad for Macbride touting the new FC-170:
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):
UPDATE: Barney Goodwin (of Barney’s Jeep Parts) sent this 1973 photo out of Houston showing another possible example of an orange city-of-Houston CJ-5 painted similarly to the jeeps below.
Barney added, “This photo was taken in June, 1973 in my hometown of Houston. A neighbor who was an official for the City of Houston owned it. (His city car is to the left of the Jeep in the photo).
Like the Jeeps in the posting (below), I believe this had been a fleet Jeep, special ordered for a construction company, municipality or county. It had the same hard top as in the photos (see the doors propped against the wall behind it. Out of sight but in my copy is the windshield. It is orange also) Note the orange hinges, mirror arm, etc.
The changes he made to it were sand tires (the beach was 50 miles nearby) which I believe were on the Kelsey deep dish rims used on the Renegade and Renegade I, and also the white upholstery .
It was neat to see him cruise around on hot Houston summer days in this- just as it appears.”
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A 1968 image from a slide on eBay shows a dually CJ-5 that’s been modified in an unusual way. Too bad the quality isn’t better.
From this pic:
A second photo on eBay reveals there were two jeeps at the 1968 equipment show in Houston, the jeep above and a second dually CJ-5 with a back hoe. Unfortunately, the image isn’t hi res enough to reveal much about the jeeps:
From the top of this photo:
UPDATE: I had something else planned for today, but my email turned flakey, so those pics will have to wait until tomorrow …. This is the third time I’ve reposted this, as the first two links turned back. I first posted the video below in 2015. It’s worth a second third look.
This video is called “WWII Jeep Gets an Honorable Discharge” and shows Mayor Fred Heine’s Ford GP. The video shows the jeep working on the farm. Lots of great shots. Wyatt’s father was the first person to work on it when Fred Heine couldn’t get it started. The jeep is now at the U.S.Veterans Memorial Museum in Huntsville Alabama, which was featured last week.
Roger Martin shared this pic with me from Facebook. Was this custom or production model (don’t have time to check it out right now).
