Search Results for: "Hugo Vidal"

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Post Alaska Or Rust Item: FCA Brazil’s Video of Hugo Vidal

December 28, 2018 • CATEGORIES: Alaska Or Rust Trip, Features, videos This site contains affiliate links for which I may be compensated.
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<– Day 21 – Saturday May 19th: Mr. Infamous (Alaska Or Rust Presentation)

UPDATE: I’m still sick so no updates. We made it back to Pasco, where we will stay a few days before heading back to Seattle to help with Dad. In the meantime, Luciano updated the video of Hugo below by adding English subtitles for the Portuguese. Enjoy!

Original post November 14, 2018: On Sunday this video debuted at the Premiere Auto Show in Brazil at the Auto Show’s Jeep Booth. It features our good friend and co-Alaska participant Hugo Vidal. It’s mostly in Portuguese, but some is in English. You’ll see both my wife and I appearing in several clips. The title refers to Hugo as the First Citizen of Jeep Nation. Kudos to Luciano Falconi for his great videography.

 

Hugo also recently published a book on his trip, written in both English and Portuguese. http://www.ewillys.com/…/26/hugo-vidal-has-published-his-b…/

<– Day 21 – Saturday May 19th: Mr. Infamous (Alaska Or Rust Presentation)

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Hugo Vidal Has Published His Book

October 26, 2018 • CATEGORIES: Books, Features This site contains affiliate links for which I may be compensated.
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UPDATE: Here’s the contact information for Hugo’s book if you are interested in purchasing a copy. Hugo’s son Fernando is handling the books and has copies on hand at his place in Florida:

Try emailing op.pineapple.book@gmail.com or go here https://www.facebook.com/flashesdeumaaventura/ for a copy:
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Original Post September 17, 2018: 

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The book was larger than I expected. It was a pleasure for me to read.

Hugo Vidal, that 85 year old intrepid traveler from Brazil (and founder of AVM) has published his book. I received a copy last week and tore right through it. It’s written in both Portuguese and English. Since Ann and I traveled with Hugo and his son Fernando last year for four weeks, I knew most of the stories he included in his book. But, there were a few new ones and some fuller explanations on others. It’s also full of photos, some I hadn’t seen.

Most of the book centers on the 1956/1957 trip. But, there’s a little bit at the end about the 2017 Alaska Or Rust adventure. And on that, I have a minor quibble. Hugo remembers me contacting him about joining us on the trip. Actually, it was Hugo who contacted me. His eagerness was infectious, as this email extract, the second email he wrote me, underscores:

“…. Since we only heard about the Alaska or Rust caravan yesterday, my son and I rushed to try and find a way of joining in. But I understand now that participation is closed. Even though we don´t even have a vehicle yet, if there is a chance for a place in the waiting list we will somehow purchase, lease, borrow or steal one….”

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Hugo dressed as a Dutch Maiden while on their jeep trip. You’ll have to read the book to learn why.

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On the left is Hugo’s restored CJ-3B. On the right was the 3B for the trip. Note the custom bed extender on the back.

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Ann took this photo of Hugo and Fernando, I believe in Jasper National Park in Canada.

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From left to right we have Charles Downey, Hugo Vidal, and Jan Stekly.

 

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Post Trip Items: Interview with Hugo Vidal

September 23, 2017 • CATEGORIES: Alaska Or Rust Trip, Features This site contains affiliate links for which I may be compensated.
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<– Day 22: Aug 11, Patterson Ends His Alaska Journey | Post Trip Items: Alaska Or Rust Article in Dispatcher Magazine –>

Here’s the interview the CBC Yukon did with Hugo Vidal on August 1st in Whitehorse, Yukon, which was also the night of his 84th birthday. It recounts his trip through Whitehorse in 1955.

I was sitting with Hugo when he did the interview. Unfortunately, during parts of the interview, Around the 4:42 mark he asks “have I told you the little poem” well that was him turning to me (away from the microphone). I was thinking at the time, NO … keep talking to the interviewer!!

<– Day 22: Aug 11, Patterson Ends His Alaska Journey | Post Trip Items: Alaska Or Rust Article in Dispatcher Magazine –>

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Day 12: Aug 1, Feliz Aniversario Hugo Vidal

August 2, 2017 • CATEGORIES: Alaska Or Rust Trip, Features This site contains affiliate links for which I may be compensated.
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<– Day 11: July 31st, Bison, Bears, and (no) Breakdowns | Day 13: Aug 2, Perma-Grins Despite Melting Permafrost –>

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Alaska Or Rust jeeps parked in front of Watson Lake’s Sign Forest. The sign forest was a pleasant surprise.

Yesterday the group split, with the Eilers and Vidals leaving Watson Lake early for a special event. Eventually, we met up again in Whitehorse.

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The group split for most of Tuesday. Ann and I and Fernando and Hugo took off earlier than the others for a special birthday event for Hugo. Before we left, we stopped at Watson Lake’s sign forest, which I thought was just a few hundred signs. In fact, one count places the number of signs at 75,000!! It truly is a forest of signs. It’s so big, that the convoy crew told me they spent almost an hour there. Here is a mix of photos from there.

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Ann took this Facebook Live video as we were driving away from the Sign Forest (before everyone else arrived). You can see just how large it is:

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Early Automatic Hubs

February 22, 2025 • CATEGORIES: Features • TAGS: . This site contains affiliate links for which I may be compensated.
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Dave here: Seth and Roger both shared links to his Facebook post showing a Cutlas Automatic Hub, which is a rarity to see in the wild. That got me thinking that I’d never done a post about the different, early attempts at creating auto-engaging hubs, which appeared to generally be a failure (none ever caught on).

WARN INDUSTRIES Mid 1950s:

I believe the first commercial attempt at an automatic hub was Warn’s hub by that very name, the Warn Automatic hub. This hub appeared as early as 1954 in this brochure (from this post),  Willys Motors was promoting the hub as of October of 1954.

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Hugo Vidal, through his Brazilian company, AVM, also produced the Automatic Model, an example shown below (from this post):

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According to Hugo, the technology was never perfected and customers had problems, so eventually the hubs were pulled from the market.

THOR AUTOMOTIVE early-mid 1960s:

The next production hub with claims to being automatic was the Thor Industries Automatic hub, advertising for which appeared in the early-mid 1960s in Four Wheeler Magazine. While the company’s Electro Hub was sort of automatic, in that you could electrically engage it from the dash, the compass Automatic Hub claimed to be fully automatic. Over the years I’ve seen a few of these, but again this hub didn’t become popular, though I don’t have any reports as to why.

This Thor ad appeared in the July 1963 issue of Four Wheeler Magazine (front this post):

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Ad from the July 1963 issue of Four Wheeler Magazine

Here is an example of the hub. Allstate also private labeled this hub, as can be seen at the top of this post.

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CUTLAS ENGINEERING early-mid 1970s:

Around 1960, Cutlas advertised an “Automatic” hub, but it wasn’t actually an automatic hub, but rather it had ‘automatic axle positioning’, which I believe meant that it made engaging the axles easier (so don’t be fooled by this advertising)!

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1957 Baden-Powell AfricaEuropeAmerica Expedition

April 8, 2021 • CATEGORIES: Books, Features • TAGS: . This site contains affiliate links for which I may be compensated.
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Derek published this story on the CJ-3B Page about three Brazilian Boy Scouts (Gabriel Paula Fonseca Jr., Everardo de Mello Nogueira, and Paulo Pinheiro de Andrade) who traveled the world, calling themselves the Baden-Powell AfricaEuropeAmerica Expedition.

Leaving in 1957, just after Hugo Vidal and his friend returned from their Operation Pineapple adventure, the Baden-Powell party used a CJ-5 that was styled and outfitted in a way similar to the Operation Pineapple CJ-3B jeep.Their goal was to attend the 9th Annual Boy Scouts Jamboree, one that also celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Scout’s founding and the Centennial of Robert Baden-Powell, the Boy Scouts’ founder.

In 2018, a story was published in English called: 1957: From Cape Town to the Nordkap on a Jeep – Three Brazilians youngsters set out to discovery the world. I just purchased it ($6.50) for the kindle, so will be reading it as I can.

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In 2017 a story was published about the trip on this site, but it appears you have to log in to access it. Some pics from this story can be seen on the internet. Based on these pics, the trio may have used the same “built with Brazilian” parts that Operation Pineapple used to fund the expedition:

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AVM Automatic Hub

March 26, 2021 • CATEGORIES: Features • TAGS: . This site contains affiliate links for which I may be compensated.
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This photo showing an AVM Automatic hub popped up on the ECJ5 forum the other day. You’ll note it makes a reference to Warn. While I’ve yet to confirm this with Hugo Vidal, this looks to be a great example of an AVM automatic hub that was patterned after the Warn automatic hub, a brief and failed experiment by Warn to have hubs that didn’t require manual engagement.

For those that don’t know, AVM was started by Hugo Vidal in 1957 (AVM) after a handshake-deal with Arthur Warn while Hugo and his two friends were driving a CJ-3B around the Americas (Brasil to Alaska, 1955 on CJ3B.info). Using Warn’s specs, Hugo was able to resell Warn tech under the AVM brand. Eventually, AVM expanded outside of Brazil. After 50 years, Hugo retired from AVM. Hugo and Warn (and his son) never had an actual contract. It was always a handshake deal built on trust.

Hugo was so important to Brazil’s jeep history that FCA Brazil called him First Citizen of Jeep Nation in a 2018 video that can be seen here: Post Alaska Or Rust Item: FCA Brazil’s Video of Hugo Vidal

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Sept/Oct 1955 Willys News

February 8, 2020 • CATEGORIES: Advertising & Brochures, Features • TAGS: . This site contains affiliate links for which I may be compensated.
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Here’s another of my favorite issues of Willys News, as it includes a photo of our good friend Hugo Vidal as he and his two traveling companions (only Charles and Hugo are shown in the pic waving good bye) were about to depart Philadelphia in their trusty CJ-3B for their drive to Alaska.

Also in this issue is an image showing some of the brochures available to dealers. There are two new brochures added since the January 1955 Willys News showed these brochures: 1) The Willys Utility Wagon Brochure and 2) the introductory 1956 DJ-3A Brochure (not available to dealers until 1956).

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1955 July/August Willys News

February 4, 2020 • CATEGORIES: Advertising & Brochures, Features • TAGS: . This site contains affiliate links for which I may be compensated.
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This Willys News issue was memorable for me because when Hugo Vidal was visiting our home from Brazil in 2017, prior to the Alaska trip, I shared some of the Willys News issues with him. He thoroughly enjoyed looking through them because he recognized some of the sales people. When he saw Hickman Price’s photo on the front page, he said, “Oh him, I remember”. That is when I realized that the history I’d collected was a history he’d experienced!

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Day 21 – Saturday May 19th: Mr. Infamous

May 20, 2018 • CATEGORIES: Alaska Or Rust Trip, Features • TAGS: . This site contains affiliate links for which I may be compensated.
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2017 ALASKA OR RUST TRIP MENU:
<– Post Trip Items: Alaska Or Rust!! 2107 …. The Book –> | Post Alaska Or Rust Item: FCA Brazil’s Video of Hugo Vidal –>

2018 EAST COAST TRIP MENU
<– Day 20 – Friday May 18th: Reunion Day 1 | Day 22 – Sunday May 20th: Hittin’ The Road –>

UPDATE: This almost-one-year anniversary was the final event of the Alaska Or Rust Crew.

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About half the Alaska Or Rust Crew. There were drinks and plenty of laughs on Saturday night.

Day 21: Saturday started at 5am and went to 1am Sunday morning. It was great to meet so many fans of my wife (I think she’s more popular than I am) and, of course, fans of eWillys. I appreciate everyone’s support, including the purchase of the shirts, books, stickers and posters. I nearly sold out of everything, so that helped cushion Day 1’s purse theft. Much appreciated! Here are some photos that Ann took (as I had no time):

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Post Trip Items: Alaska Or Rust Article in Dispatcher Magazine

November 22, 2017 • CATEGORIES: Alaska Or Rust Trip, Features, Magazine This site contains affiliate links for which I may be compensated.
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<– Post Trip Items: Interview with Hugo Vidal | Post Trip Items: German Documentary w/ Alaska Or Rust Folks –>

The Fall 2017 issue of Dispatcher Magazine arrived in my mailbox yesterday. Kevin and Bill put together a great article on the Alaska Trip.

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<– Post Trip Items: Interview with Hugo Vidal | Post Trip Items: German Documentary w/ Alaska Or Rust Folks –>

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Early Warn Brochures

September 12, 2017 • CATEGORIES: Advertising & Brochures, Features This site contains affiliate links for which I may be compensated.
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I missed out on these early Warn brochures that sold on eBay. There were two hubcap brochures, also known as “summer hubs”. The third brochure (in yellow) touts the Automatic Warn Hub. According to Hugo Vidal, Warn Industries and Hugo’s company AVM had all kinds of trouble with the Automatic hub, so it was discontinued (possibly in favor of the Warn Lockomatic hub?).
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