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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.
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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 .
A few weeks ago I stumbled upon the National Archives of Canada the other day, discovering a variety of WWII Jeep images related to Canadian forces.
2. Troopers of the Three Rivers Regiment in a jeep, England, 22 July 1942.
Here are some more pics from the same source as yesterday’s pics (crated Jeeps and Seeps). These all show the assembly of jeeps at different stages in the process. Note this first image is backwards (the transfercases are all extending to the left rather than the right, unlike the second image).
Gerald found an old email with some great links. Here are a few of some crated Willys. I don’t have any background or ownership information on them.
UPDATE: I did a little more research and finally found this photo at the CJ-3B Page. There is a complete discussion of the history of the CJ-3B, including a note that the CJ-3B has a custom body extension and a Sears top was purchased that was also custom extended. It’s a good story to read.
I’m not sure where this image might have originated, but I spotted it at expeditionportal.com.
Rich forwarded this image of an old FC with a big load from this website. Cool pic!
A while back, Tom told me his dad has stories from WWII about flipping Jeeps on their side to work on them. After some digging, he managed to locate this for our viewing pleasure. Many Thanks Tom! See some other tipped jeeps here.
Just a couple photos tonight from the Canadian Archives that show some stencilers at work.
1) Unidentified soldier stencilling numbers on the hood of a jeep, England, 21 December 1943.
I don’t know anything about this particular jeep except that it is called the “Dixie Flyer”. It seems to be a modified MB with a ‘Courier’ sign in the front and some modifications to the fenders. It also appears to have a gas tank on the passenger side (I think that is what is sticking down under the passenger?). I found this image on the European Center of Military History’s Blog.
David Ommanney appears to have been a well know big game hunter in Nairobi. As best as I can tell, this is a modified Willys Wagon. I have searched for a better image, but haven’t found one, though I found images of his later vehicle, a Landrover.
Here’s an unusual color photo of soldiers posing in a Willys MA from Life Magazine. I couldn’t find the original source of this on the Life Magazine site (I stumbled upon it through Google).
Here’s an image from 1942 that Hugo spotted at wikipedia. The picture is high enough resolution that I was able to get a couple closeup pics as well.
As I was researching yesterday’s article on the LRDG, I wanted to learn more about the Bagnold sun compass. After reading the explanation, I’m am quite sure that I’m not yet ready to be thrown in the middle of the desert with a Bagnold.
However, as I did my research this unique ‘time’ piece on a French Sundial website, I happened to see the amazing image below.
Just a few Updates Tonight ….
As a kid in elementary school, I remember climbing under my desk as part of our emergency drills (earthquake, nuclear blast, bully avoidance). But, I always wondered what I would do if there wasn’t a desk to dive under!
Now I know the government had already been planning for a lack of desks. Thanks to this image Alex spotted on Wikipedia, I now see that I just have to locate a Willys Wagon and dive into it for safety. Sure, it might get blown over, but it would sure be more comfortable than getting trapped underneath my desk (unless I was trapped under my desk with my sweetheart from 6th grade Michelle, but that’s a whole ‘nother story)! See the expanded image here.
As I mentioned a couple days ago, a reader named Dave spotted this article and wanted to share it with readers. The article published in the 1960 edition of All American Word follows the All American Engineering Company Testing the air drop of a jeep by a pallet rather than via a parachute. To test this concept, the AAE built a special vehicle to mimic the landing of a jeep atop a pallet at speeds of 135mph. As you can see, the test was successful (at least the one captured in the photos).
Dave writes,”I was in Georgetown, DE recently which is a small town on the DelMarVa peninsula, and I ran across this very interesting use for a VEC CJ2A! I think it might fit your recent “museum” series of posts and I’m sure that your eagle-eyed readers will immediately recognize the historical relevance of this column shift speed demon! Apparently, this was a precursor to what is now known as LAPES or the Low Altitude Parachute Extraction System which is still taught, practiced and used today by our Military for forward area resupply missions. I watched C130 crews practice this (with varying levels of success)! at Whiteman AFB in western Missouri in the late 80’s. Fortunately by that point they were only destroying HMMWVs and military pickup trucks! The 8 of 10 or so operations that were succesful were really cool and you could certainly see the advantages of this type of operation.”
Click on the link below to see some closeups
Just a few updates tonight (sat night)
I’m guessing this is a Fire Department (perhaps makeshift) out of Korea. I found this during an image search, but I could not locate the source. It looks like a Library of Congress type of image. If anyone knows of the source, please let me know so I can properly credit it.
UPDATE: Brendan noted that this is indeed a LOC image. Here is a link to this image and others http://www.history.army.mil/photos/Holiday/wwii.htm.
I suspect it was just easier to stick the tree in the MA rather than his sleigh? It’s a great pic. I found this during an image search, but I could not locate the source. It looks like a Library of Congress type of image. If anyone knows of the source, please let me know so I can properly credit it.
At JpZombie.com, Casey has uploaded 20 images from the late 40s / early 50s. Several of the images have also been loaded at the earlycj5.com website and a thread has popped up around them. A video was also uploaded (see below) that shows early color footage of the Yakima Ridge Runners (from Yakima, Washington) playing in what appears to be the Little Naches River and shows them traveling over the Naches Trail (you can also see video excerpts from Exploration Northwest which discusses the trail).
Below is a small version of one of the pics at JpZombie. In this pic, you can see on the sign ‘Wally Klingele’, who was one of the founding members of the Ridge Runners. Some of the pics at JpZombie appear to be pics capturing the Life Magazine Folks who put together these classic videos (ridge runner video 1 & ridge runner video 2).
This is also courtesy of JpZombie.com via Youtube:
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5eIbxvuKJQ
Thanks to Wes at offroadaction.ca for creating a post about this great collection of black and white photos (how I haven’t stumbled across it is beyond me) at Jeep4ever’s website. Click here to see nearly 200 b&w photos, some you probably have seen and some you haven’t seen courtesy of Jeep4ever.ca (I’ve posted a variety of these previously, but found them through the library of congress).
I particularly like this one.
There are some new Bantam and MB testing photos at Life Magazine. There are some great closeups of the Bantam. Note the first pic — I believe that is the first ‘jeep’ ever stuck in the mud; it surely wasn’t the last! All six of these photos were taken by David E. Scherman in 1940.
Bruce forwarded me links to two images of Surreys he has posted.
The first one is from the Virgin Islands in 1958 and shows a DJ-3A in the center of the picture and a DJ-3A Surrey at the lower left. The second image shows 5 or more Surreys sitting at rental lot Hawaii, the surrey in center front
is a 1963 with 13″ tires and babymoon hubcaps.
Strangely, I’ve never experience anything in my jeep like these drivers did …. (I think these are both images from Life Magazine, too — I will have to double check this)
About a week ago I was looking through some images and noticed a couple jeeps with unusual paint jobs across the windshields. It turns out these were jeeps associated with the Constabulary Force in Europe. (I believe these differ from the ‘white mice‘ MPs)
Here’s an excerpt about the Constabulary Force from the history of the 2nd Constabulary Regiment, “The District Constabularies were regarded as an interim force during the time USFET [United States Forces European Theater] was submitting plans for a more extensive organization.
The Theater plan of organization proposed a Zone Constabulary composed of three Brigade Headquarters at the German Land or state level, each to include an Air Reconnaissance Squadron and varying numbers of Cavalry Groups; twelve Constabulary Group Headquarters; forty-eight Squadrons with 192 mechanized recon troops, 48 tank companies, and 48 Headquarter and Service troops. The total strength was to approximate 38,000 troopers.
Paralleling the planning and development of the United States Constabulary from its origin to the operational date of July 1, 1946, was the Mobile Security Control of the U. S. occupied zone (as we have already stated) by the District Constabularies. The Second Cavalry Group was shortly joined by the Sixth and Fifteenth Cavalry Groups to accomplish this.”
Back to the paint schemes, here are several pics with the unusual paint schemes. Unfortunately, I don’t have any color pics and the pics I do have aren’t great ones.
Walter Sanders snapped the 2nd and 3rd images as part of his work for Life Magazine.
Here’s a link to the site with this image:
Here’s a link to the site with this image:
Tim contacted me to note that he published more images about Willys and Fidel from Cuba on willysjeep.com. Here is a little history of Fidel and Willys along with a gallery of images. I previously published a post about Cuba here. Tim continues to publish some truly unique items!
Here’s a sneak peak of an ambulance. I haven’t come across too many later model Willys Ambulances.
