Bill shared this nice looking M-38A1 with some good history. This is listed on eBay with a “Make Offer” option.
View all the information on eBay
“Korean War Navy jeep for sale. It was a shore patrol vehicle on the USS Dunn County LST-742. My dad bought it from an American Legion Museum In Spartanburg SC where it was restored. My dad use to drive it in the veterans parade in our town. We just installed a new carberator and it runs and drives good. Comes with a real .30 cal machine gun mounted on the passenger side that been made inoperable ”
Always good to see a restored A1. Some easily correctable issues: gauge cluster panel (no sign of lights…never seen that), crazed speedometer face, illegible and incomplete data plates (?…come on, the museum should have addressed that).
Also, I wonder if it really was a Navy unit or just restored that way?
And would the Shore Patrol REALLY mount a machine gun on a LST truck in peacetime? (they must have docked in rough neighborhoods).
Finally, what’s with the stars on the fenders? A lot of folks who restore military vehicles seem to think they are a requirement.
Perhaps in WWII, but not in the M38A1’s timeframe.
I had wondered, in particular, about the gun setup.
About a decade ago I reserved the URL “jeepbones.com”. My goal was to create a simple website that would reflect what stock jeeps of various years and models looked like when released to the public or military. Moreover, I wanted to discuss how models evolved, such as the differences between the first 2A and the last. I figured it would help restorers and teach folks, along with being a site folks could link to when posting, to make things like you point out more obvious. Alas, I never found the time I needed to create it.