During the late 1960s, a couple different Jeep dealers in Hawaii offered DJ-5 Jeep Galas for sale. There were at least two different styles of ads published. The Gala was a Surrey that was sold by the export arm of the company.
In 1967, a Kaiser-Jeep dealership owned by Von Hamm-Young Mercantile, flew the 1968 model of the DJ-5 Gala Jeep to Hawaii. From the story below, it would seem that this may have been the first example of a DJ-5 Gala Jeep arriving in Hawaii. Note that the photo’s caption only describes this jeep as a Gala.
Over the next two years, the dealer published ads hoping to spur sales. We’ll likely never know how successful sales were, but I’d suspect not too many were sold.
1) The first ad appeared between April and September of 1968. The example shown below was published in the May 30, 1968, issue of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin. There are a variety of things that struck me with this ad. First, it’s the first ad I’ve seen for a DJ-5 Surrey/Gala. Second, it is advertised as a “Surrey Gala”, rather than one or the other. Third, it came in six different color schemes. Fourth, later in the year (specifically September 24th in the Hawaii Tribune Herald), Big Island Rambler was the dealer name at the bottom of the ad, with no specific link made to Von Hamm-Young.
Apart from all those points, it’s generally just an odd ad for a vehicle!
2) This ad appeared multiple times, but only during April of 1969 (I could find no other ads for any other month in 1969), isn’t quite as odd as the 1968 campaign. The ad also doesn’t mention the multiple package options. This particular example was published in the April 4th, 1969, issue of the Honolulu Advertiser.
