Merry Christmas (eve) everyone!

I must have seen this commercial when it aired back in 1983, but I don’t remember it. I guess I had other things on my mind? I graduated in the summer of ’83, for which my parents bought me the first jeep of my own (I’d driven Dad’s CJ-5 for a couple years), a patched together, blue, modified CJ-3A with a Buick V-6 and T-15 for $1500. I spent the summer cruising around in it, then the Fall driving it to my first (and last) quarter at a community college, before pretty much flunking out (I just didn’t care about college at that point).

Instead of college, I traded labor for a rundown, hacked together racer, took that apart, and started building what would become my first project jeep. Too young, dumb, and stubborn to fail, I got a part time job cooking and used those meager funds to cobble together a custom jeep over the subsequent year and a half.