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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 .
Here’s part 3 (days 5&6) of the Epic Willys Adventure from the Oregon Trail. For some reason, the video won’t play within this post. So, you’ll have to go to YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/embed/y622iR4g1lg
If not up to date on the videos, catch up on Part I and Part II also.
This lighter is located in Italy. I’ve not seen one of these 3B lighters.
“19x9x11 cm. THE LIGHTER IS EMPTY need to be charge”
Blaine spotted this photo of a rail car full of FJ-3 USPS Fleetvans.
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/862087553655918001/
UPDATE: **SOLD** For $90.79 on eBay
This is a cool, retro lighter featuring Time and Life and a CJ-5. Why would it feature both Life and Time logos?
“Good working condition with good plunger seal, clean chimney, good printed display.”
UPDATE: Was $35,000. Now Make Offer. This wagon was listed in California in 2020. Now it’s listed in Texas.
(01/31/2017) This one has been around a while.
https://houston.craigslist.org/cto/d/1951-willys-custom-woody/7445137286.html
“All custom 51 Willys woodie. Extensive sheet metal work, extended fenders, hood, roll pan and a tilt hood and more. All polished LS engine, with LS460e trans polished, hydro boost brakes. Custom dash, gauges, center console. Custom rebuilt painted frame blazer. All custom solid Maple wood with electric lift gate, PW, PB tilt etc. Custom interior, 6 way power seats with headrest monitors, custom made maple rear floor. Brand new 20″ rims and tires. So much more…view the photos for all the extras all top name brand parts. Less than 300 miles. Just testing the market. Serious offers only. Leave a message.”
Just few posts for this morning. Given the arctic blast of cold air that descended from the north (it is a windy 18 degrees at the moment), I’ll be inside most of the afternoon and evening. So, I’ll do some more posts later today.
Before the cold weather arrived, it was warm enough yesterday for me to disassemble the fence and roof of the “chicken” shack, which was really a dove cage. But, I still call it the chicken shack. In its place will be a series of raised garden beds for now. Still much work to be done, as the propane tank and the water tank both need to be moved. We are keeping the fencing around the shack in place for the time being so the dogs don’t get out.
Here are some before and after photos:
A few days ago we got the big willows in the back taken down and the stumps removed. It’s a mess, but am happy the trees are gone. The lean-tos will be disassembled at some point and, hopefully, replaced by a barn.
Before:
After:
UPDATE: **Status Unknown**
My friend Joe in Pennsylvania is looking to sell his jeeps. He’s got a variety of flat fenders, including “Rusty“, a 1956 DJ-3A I sold him back in 2019. All four of these have good PA titles. Here are some older pics of each jeep (Joe is working getting up-to-date pics. If you have interest, email Joe at abguy @ enter.net (remove spaces around the @)
“Also, I have a 62 hardtop (no title) that has had the body scrapped but all else is intact as a rolling parts source. There are a lot of accumulated parts, many upgrades, a new ½ oft top for the ME unit, 2 new tanks, etc.”
UPDATE: Frederic spotted another example of a Mobile Cinema trailer on Google:
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Frédéric lives in France and recently completed a model, shown above, based on the mobile cinema operation shown in the photo below (see more mobile cinema photos here). We tried to find more pics of the mobile cinema setup, but we didn’t have much luck, so he had to use his imagination and experience for additional details. It took a year to complete and he did a great job!
His next project will be a German Car, a Stoewer from 691e Panzer Propaganda Kompanie that will include a couple german war reporters.
In the meantime, as a health care professional, Frédéric is on the medical front lines in France fighting COVID-19. His region doesn’t have too many cases at the moment, so he’s in a relatively better place than other medical professionals in France. Stay safe Frédéric!
Here are some more photos:
UPDATE: It’s been 9 years since this post has run, which just shows you how rare it is to see one of these for sale (see next post)
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Craig Brockhaus saw the Boyertown Economy Delivery Comparison Post (see below) and forwarded both Boyertown and Montpelier Delivery Truck designs. Cool Stuff!
MONTPELIER DELIVERY TRUCK ARTICLE:
BOYERTOWN DELIVERY TRUCK INFORMATION:
This rare economy delivery van has an even rare cousin, the Montpelier version. Thanks to Roger Martin for spotting it. No description provided.
https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/339496464754340/
Econev
UPDATE: Several instances of newspapers carrying the ad have been found across the US. They include, Page 5 of the Atlanta Constitution’s American Weekly Magazine Page 3 (thanks John), The San francisco Examiner Sun’s American Weekly Magazine Page 3, and The Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph’s American Weekly Magazine Page 3. So, it was the American Weekly Magazine that printed the ad. Thanks for everyone’s help!
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Barry is investigating how a Farm Aide Lift (or what appears to be one) ended up on page 3 in an April 6, 1947, Willys-Overland ad for the Universal Jeep. The biggest question is [ed note: now answered], in what magazine did the ad appear? My guess was that it is some kind of newspaper-related Sunday periodical (such as Parade or The Week). It might have even been a western-US only periodical or ad.
Well, I was right about the Sunday periodical, it was the American Weekly Magazine Page 3, but I was wrong about the regional aspect; it’s clear it was nationwide.
You can Barry’s full post about the topic here: https://www.farmjeep.com/2022/02/16/april-1947-mystery-ad-is-that-a-non-jeep-approved-lift/
Here is a closeup of part of the ad (compare it with the Farm Aide Lift).
Photo Credit: Farm Jeep and the Mysteries 1947 ad post
This whole ad appeared in the Atlanta Consititution:
Here is the cover of the magazine:
Bill shared this Autorevolution article. I’ve included the video of the rebuild as well.
PART I:
PART II:
Sorry for the lack of updates this week. Ann’s still recovering from gallbladder surgery, but she’s been well enough to keep an eye on the dogs during the day. So, I’ve been busy this week rebuilding the small shop (in back of the big shop … roughly 25′ x 20′). It was a dark, dingy room with one fluorescent light that didn’t work.
Since we have plans to redo this area of the shop (a year or two away), I didn’t want to invest too much into the room. So,after pulling down all the old shelving, I washed the walls, rather than paint them. Then, I replaced the dying fluorescent light with a series of LED shop lights. It’s not all that elegant, but it’s nice and bright in there. I also bought some hangers so I can put my extra wood onto the wall. Finally, I built a long, narrow, sturdy shop bench out of recycled wood and screws, where I can store more wood pieces and other materials. I still need to add a pegboard and build a vacuum setup for the wood dust.
Here’s a brief look at the small shop. My one before-photo isn’t all that good, but, as you can see, the room was dark (and that was with the light on)!.
There are the after pics, though there is more work, cleaning, and organizing to do still.
Bill spotted an article at Hemmings about coach-built jeeps. Some of the Duriez ads were posted on eWillys back in 2014.
https://www.hemmings.com/stories/2022/02/14/jeep-coachbuilding-french-leftover-world-war-ii
PHOTO CREDIT: Hemmings.com
I put this series of tailgate photos together for Don, but perhaps others can use these measurements? If I had more time, I put together a drawing with them, but, for now, this is the best I have:
UPDATE: Here is a third one that was documented on Worthpoint and a forth one, also documented on Worthpoint. Both are slightly different from the two below and each other. My guess now is that these originated from this Australian company named Boyle. Though it no longer has jeeps listed, the site does include other vehicles with a similar vintage feel.
I bought this wagon off of eBay last week. At the time, I couldn’t find a comparable one. Though the eBayer listed this as a 1947 wagon (which technically it emulates), the stamp on the bottom clearly indicates it was made in 2005. My guess was that it was a newer model rather than an older one. Still, it was a good price (especially given it was coming from Canada) and a nice large piece in great shape. So, I bought it.
There is a similar one on eBay right now (NOW SOLD) (see pics at the bottom of the post), but there are numerous detail differences between them.
Here are pics of the one currently on eBay:
There are a variety of minor differences between these two models. For example, this one has not stamp or date on the bottom. The windshields edges and wipers are different. The grille on this one has more slots than mine. This was has the 4-wheel-drive detail on the hood (mine doesn’t). This was has different hubcaps than mine. Mine has more “lines” on the bottom edge of the sides than this one. The steering wheel on this is brown and sits higher than mine.
I thought I had created a post about the various oil filter brackets years ago, but if I did, I can’t find it. So, here are the three type of brackets on l-heads from 1942-1965. (If anyone knows of others, let me know via the comments)
Triangle: The first type is the “triangle-style”. It’s a familiar one on WWII and CJ-2A engines.
OVAL: This second type, the “oval-style”, was likely on l-heads sometime and somewhere between 1950 and 1952 (as best as I can tell). These are pretty rare and the pic below is the best example I currently have.
Round: The third type, “the “round-style”, appeared on late 1952 l-heads and later on DJ-3As:
I snagged this rare postal jeep FJ-3 brochure off of ebay; It is rare enough that I didn’t know these existed! One thing that caught my eye was the Civil Defense sticker. I off handedly mentioned it to Ann and she quickly found the reason for the sticker. From this page at the USPS website:
Each year from 1954 to 1961, civil defense authorities coordinated a drill called Operation Alert.6 Cities across the country conducted civil defense exercises on the same day. Postal participation in Operation Alert 1956 was described in a West Virginia newspaper:
A civil defense drill was held Tuesday afternoon in the Beckley Post Office. This drill was one of a series of simultaneous drills held in 38 key postal installations of the Washington Region….
These training drills are required by the government since keeping the mails moving plays an important part in the communications system that must be maintained during national emergencies. Four feder- al trucks operated by the Beckley Post Office have been designated Civil Defense units, and bear that insignia.
Including the four vehicles at the Beckley Post Office, 25,000 postal trucks were designated as emergency civil defense vehicles and fitted with Civil Defense de- cals in 1956. It was believed that “postal trucks would be valuable as emergency ambulances, rescue vehicles, and for local emergency transportation in the event of an enemy attack.”
Starting in 1956, many postal vehicles bore decals indicating their potential use as ambulances, rescue vehicles, and for other transportation during emergencies.
In December 1964, the Civil Defense Program was expanded to include even the smallest postal-owned motor vehicles, the three-wheeled Mailsters. Vehicle maintenance facilities provided Civil Defense decals so that each of these smaller deliver could be identified. Civil Defense decals were required on postal-owned vehicles until March 1971.
Now for the brochure:
The latest issue of the Dispatcher Magazine arrived in my mail box. The Bantam BRC-40 shown on the front is the focus of a fascinating story on it’s use as a truck at the America Bantam Factory. It is likely the first jeep with a tailgate!
Bill shared this article byAuthor Rob Emslie, who shared his thoughts on Jalopnik about a modified Willys Wagon for sale in California.
https://jalopnik.com/at-29-000-is-this-chevy-powered-1962-willys-wagon-a-w-1848513865
Photo: Rob Emslie/Jalopnik
The 13th annual Willys-Overland Rally willy be held from April 29th – May 1st. It should be another great event! It looks like they will be holding it a little earlier than in the past, which should provide perfect weather (not blazing hot).
I spotted this brochure on eBay. It’s not jeep specific, but does depict a CJ-2A using the sprayer. Given the model of jeep, I imagine this was a late 1940s brochure. The brochure came from Canada and the company is from Winnipeg, so the brochure was likely meant for the Canadian market.
I’m showing the order of this 4-page brochure backwards, as the jeep is on the last page, not the first.
The AMVCC and Buckeye Air Fair show are working together this February in Buckeye, Arizona. The AMVCC event has been extended to three days this year. Our own Joe-in-Mesa is president-elect for the AMVCC, so make sure to say hello to him if you see him there.
Barry spotted a 1943 trademark application for the term Jeepmobile. The application may have been denied, as the USPTO does not have a record of that term being awarded a registered trademark status.
So, why trademark the term? My guess is that W-O had noticed that the term was, at times, being used to describe the jeep. For example, the third paragraph in this 1941 article that appeared in a variety of newspapers describes the jeep as “jeep-mobiles” or “blitz buggies”:
September 09, 1941, The Daily Reporter out of Greenfield, IN.
The application claims the term was first used by the company on March 01, 1943, which likely means it should appear in some ad some where, but I couldn’t find any ad with that term.
Perhaps securing the term was a defensive measure against others using it (especially Ford)? We’ll likely never know.
After the war, the term pops up several times in newspaper articles as well. So, in some form, the term was used by the public most likely in casual conversation rather than as a formal description by W-O.
Blaine spotted this unusual Hearse from Brazil. Now that’s some style! According to the caption, “This is a Jeep Rural Willys adapted as a Funeral Car, which was used by the municipal government of the city of Pirajú, state of São Paulo, Brazil, in the early 1970s.”
