The arrival of the FJ-3s made the newspapers in a variety of states. This first article appeared in the February 02, 1961, issue of the Bridgeport Post out of Connecticut:
February 02, 1961, The Bridgeport Post, Bridgeport, CT.
February 02, 1961, The Bridgeport Post, Bridgeport, CT.
This next article appeared in the October 04, 1961, issue of the Owensboro, Kentucky, Messenger and Inquirer.
October 04, 1961, The Messenger and Inquirer, Owensboro, Kentucky,
The Mitchell, South Dakota, Post Office may have only purchased one FJ, but it still made the paper:
November 11, 1961, The Daily Republic, Mitchell, SD.
Here’s an add for the followup model, the FJ-3A .It appeared in The Lawton Constitution out of Oklahoma on January 07, 1962.
This is the more common version of the FJ-3A ad published across the country:
December 20, 1961, Arizona Daily Star, Tucson, AZ.
NJ post offices had few of these, Mailmen were still using their personal cars to walk their routes. I only remember the Paterson, NJ Post Office having the FJ3’s in their fleet. The newsdealer I worked for in the 1960’s had 2 FJ3A delivery vans (left hand Drive) what a blast to drive, cut down on delivery time, seating height, sliding windows & doors along with compact design made the Fleetvan the perfect delivery vehicle. P/S The stick shift was positioned somewhat behind the driver’s seat, very long with a long throw, made it fun to drive. You needed to be careful going around corners, would tip to one side, on more than one occasion, I lost a helper when he slid out the open door when going around a corner.
Mike, did you ever find the helper after you lost him? 🙂 … good stories as usual!
Yes Dave, it easy to find the lost helpers, once it happened to them, it never happened again, they made sure they held on to the factory installed grab bar (OEM) mounted on the outside of the passenger door. I suspect Kaiser Willys was aware of the helper problem.