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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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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.
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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 .
UPDATE: Originally posted Feb 1, 2018:
The May 1951 issue of Motor Trend captured the 3rd Annual DeAnza Trail Jeep Cavalcade. The author, Ernest Reshovsky, titled the article “Jeep Gymkhana”, possibly attempting to reference timed automobile or equestrian contents designed to test driving skill, though to my knowledge the Cavalcade was not a timed event.
(<– See Part II of the road trip)
Over the past few days Randy and Carson made good time, yet saw plenty. From Yosemite, they traveled southeast until camping somewhere in Nevada.
The next morning, they drove to Las Vegas, Nevada, where they hit the Vegas strip. At some point, Carson broke a fan belt, so they got to spend more time than planned in Vegas.
Back on the road, they drove to Utah. There, they met up with Jake White and others to take the offroad trip to Toquerville Falls, Utah.
Randy Qualls is on the left and Carson on the right. Here, they are just entering Arizona.
Randy and his son Carson are currently part way through a cross country trip in two flat fenders. Their journey began a few days ago in Jacksonville, Florida. Their western destination is Ventura, California. From there, they plan to drive back, heading slightly farther north through Utah and Colorado, before angling back south towards Florida. They’ve been documenting their trip on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ P?id=100085873092539
Here are a few pics.
This is a map of their route. They are currently in Arizona driving west along the yellow line.
From Florida, they drove to Alabama, but had a few mechanical issues at one point.
Then on to Mississippi:
They got caught up in some rain, but that didn’t stop them:
Soon, they were in Arkansas (cool stickers ;-)):
Eventually they hit Texas (and likely had good weather from there):
They’ve are equipped to camp at night:
A photo from the May 30, 1959, issue of the Eugene Guard showing the FC-170 “EL Borrego” with the Boyds.
UPDATE: This series of articles was first published in 2015. I’ve updated with several additional articles and photos.
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(First published February 15, 2015) This interesting collection of news articles captures Howard & Ora Boyd’s 1958 trip in an FC to South America. The first article was published prior to the trip. The second was published during the trip. The third was published following the trip. I was only able to find one photo and it was poor at best. It may have been that the Boyd’s got the idea from the Schreiders, who did nearly the same route three years before them.
Howard Boyd died in 1993, but Ora Boyd lived until 2009, dying at the age of 106, meaning she was born around 1903. Living much of their lives near Eugene, Oregon, according to her obituary their year-long jeep trip was one of her all-time favorite memories. The obituary was published in the Talent, Oregon, Historical Society newsletter, so I’ve written them to see if we can learn more.
1. This October 31, 1958, EugeneRegister-Guard article discusses trip preparations. The Boyds had a custom camper built for their FC (though no articles mention the model of the vehicle — it looks to me like an FC based on the pic below). They named their jeep “El Borrego”.
2. November 09, 1958 Eugene Guard .. brief article:
3. December 14, 1958, from the Eugene Guard:
In 1951, Kurland Motors provided the Los Angeles Times automobile editor, Lynn Rogers, a wagon for a journey down to Ensenada, Mexico. A description of the trip was printed in the October 21, 1951, issue of the Los Angeles Times.
UPDATE: This was first posted in August of 2016.
This September 13, 1958, article from the Toledo Blade told the story of four italians who drove what appears to be a WWII jeep a distance of 80,000 miles from Italy to Toledo. The men, all newspapermen, planned to drive another 15,000 miles back to Italy. What a trip! I wonder if their counterparts in 2013 knew of their countrymen’s adventure?
This December 06, 1958, article in the Tulare Advance Register highlights the Tulare County Four-Wheel Drive Club with pics and text. It’s not a club that I recognize, but the club was pivotal to the formation of the California Association of Jeeps Clubs in 1959 (later known as the California Four Wheel Drive Association). I tried to find a club logo or sticker, but couldn’t locate any example.
Here’s the 1958 article (spliced for easier viewing):
The March 1963 issue of Four Wheeler Magazine included an article by Brian L. Pinn about the Anglo-African Trans-World Safari, the pics and text of which can be found at The FC Connection.
It turns out there’s a bit more information out there, though not as much as I’d hoped to find, especially given that the group of travelers that made up the trip had access to cameras and film and also given that in January 1963 American Television script-writer John Hicken was supposed to join the group to film the around-the-world adventure.
Without that storehouse of info, or a book, or a movie, we only have the following scraps to better understand the adventure.
South African Derek Linton came up with the idea to travel the world in 1958. At some point, in order to gather equipment, Derek travelled to the United States in 1959. He was photographed at a Ham Radio station in Burlington, Kentucky, a visit later reported in the January issue of Short Wave Magazine:
The 1959 story appears here http://hamgallery.com/gallery/W/w4kvx_shack.htm … and the January 1960 excerpt from Short Wave Magazine appears here.
This map shows the proposed route:
On September 19, 1961, a photo of Derek Linton and Gerald Cubitt (unsure who he is) was taken by Henry Bush. It’s part of the Henry Bush collection at Shutter Stock:
Mandatory Credit: Photo by Henry Bush/ANL/Shutterstock (5693954a)
Anglo-african 1st Expedition Adventurers Derek Linton (left) And Gerald Cubitt. Box 634 413101543 A.jpg.
In the July 27, 1962, issue of the Warren County Observer, a syndicated article appeared by John P. Callahan that shared the news of how the idea for the trip originated and the progress the travelers had made:
Finally, on January 05, 1963, the Evening Standard (London, England) reported that John Hicken was going to join the crew:
In March 1963, the Four Wheeler article appeared.
There is also a mention in a 1963 issue of Business Week about the travelers, but I’ve been unable to determine which issue.
LINKS: Top two excerpts were here and bottom one was here.
After that, I have been unable to learn more about the journey.
In 1949, Mr. and Mrs. William H. Meyer drove in a CJ-2A from the Panama Canal to Decatur, Illinois. The article below provide the only records I could find related to their trip. This first article summarizes the adventure and shows a great photo of “DOPEY”. It was published in the Decatur Review, June 16, 1949:
This second article is a pictorial of the trip that was published June 18, 1949, in Bloomington, Illinois’ “The Pantagraph”:
This is a different summary of the trip, but contains no photos. It was published in the Daily Advertiser (Lafayette, Louisiana) on May 13, 1949:
This last article was published June 17, 1949, in the Herald and Review out of Decatur, Illinois:
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.
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:
This photo captures three friends traveling from Hawaii to the midwest via Minnesota. Akira Tanaka, sitting in the driver’s seat, helped establish the military intelligence company that was part of Camp Savage in Minnesota.This was published in the September 16, 1946, issue of The Minneapolis Star.
I tried to learn more about these three, but didn’t have much luck. There was an Akira Tanaka that went to work for General Motors and built himself a home that was featured in a 1955 article in the Detroit Press. So, it’s possible that he graduated from College in Michigan, then went to work for GM. If that’s the case, he developed several automotive patents for the company.
On December 06, 1949, New York Artist and former Gallery owner Elenore Lust drove her WWII jeep into Capetown, completing a 13,000 mile trek from France to South Africa. Their trek took them across ten countries. During one long stretch in the Sahara Desert she and her husband Paul Koston, who didn’t know how to drive, had to spread wire mesh on the sand, drive atop it, then roll it up, move it to the front of the jeep, then drive forward again, a process they repeated many times.
Unfortunately, I could not locate a photo of her and her jeep, but I was able to find a photo and an obit, which shared that after teaching art in South Africa, she returned to the US and began teaching art in Pennsylvania up until her death.
This article from the December 07, 1949, issue of New York’s Daily News provides some details about the trip.
Here’s the only photo of Elenore I could find. It was printed in the June 08, 1988, issue of the Philadelphia Inquirer:
Her obituary was published in the April 24, 1997, issue of the Philadelphia Inquirer:
UPDATE II: Maury forwarded an updated video about the Sand Ship Discovery that was posted to youtube in January of 2020. Loren’s wife provides information on some of the unique details of this CJ-5, modified for difficult terrain and the 6’4″ Loren Upton.
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This post was last posted December 26, 2017: This just appeared in our local newspaper. A couple local folks are helping him out. Here’s an accompanying video:
ORIGINAL ARTICLE FROM MAY 10, 2017:
An article from Spokane’s Spokesman Review alerted me to the story of A World Odyssey-The Epic Voyage of the Sand Ship Discovery. This is actually a local story (for me) as Loren Upton, the man at the root of the adventure, has lived in Yakima and the Tri-Cities and worked at the nearby Hanford nuclear reservation.
Between 1984 and 1989, Loren piloted a CJ-5 around the world, surpassing 55,000 miles. The jeep holds a Guiness book of World Record for being the first vehicle to cross the Darien Gap. Some of you might remember the 2014 post about the 1959-1960 venture across the Darien Gap in a Willys Truck and a Land Rover. However, some of that trip was done by floating part of the river.
Loren’s nephew Laurence would like to restore the CJ-5 back to it’s former glory and then take his Uncle on one more world trip. They’ve set up a go-fund-me page and a website with lots of information and photos. Good luck to them!
http://www.outbackofbeyond.com/index.html
UPDATE: Gil’s hoping to reconnect with he Shakespeare family, so I’m reposting this in the hopes some family member might see it.
Original Post January 18, 2017 — Bill shared the video below from Jack and Doreen Shakespeare. Together, the couple recount their 1958 journey in a late 40’s wagon from Australia to England. The trip took them 114 days. Fortunately for us, they filmed much of the trip. It’s a great story.
Maynard Roberts pictures on the left in San Paulo, Brazil, from the January 23, 1950, issue of the Pomona Progress Bulletin.
In 1948, 34 year-old Maynard Roberts, from La Verne, California, traveled south into Mexico and spent the next 18 months exploring Central and South American. He wrote a series of articles for the Pomona Progress Bulletin detailing his trip. He’d hoped to write a book, but I have been unable to locate one. If he didn’t, it’s too bad, because I think he was a very good writer.
His skill is evident early on when he wrote a phrase that caught my attention, “About seven years ago I was keeping company with my last twenty-dollar bill …” His attention to details and telling a few small stories make his tale worth reading. It’s unfortunate that these articles only share snippets, for it seems he’s got a good story to tell and the skill to tell it.
His idea to travel germinated prior to WWII. He was born in Lima, Ohio, in 1914. As a child, his parents moved to California, Near the start of WWII he got the idea to travel to South America, so he began saving money. During WWII he was a draftsman, perhaps a skill learned during his college days at Chaffee college? Finally, by 1948, he saved up enough money to buy a jeep and afford to travel.
Part one of his adventure appeared in the January 09, 1950, issue of the Ponoma Progress Bulleting, split into two sections.
Part II: This is the second installment of Maynard’s adventure. It appeared in the January 16, 1950, issue of the Pomona Progress Bulletin.
On September 11, 1956, President Dwight D. Eisenhower introduced the People-to-People Program, “to enhance international understanding and friendship through educational, cultural and humanitarian activities involving the exchange of ideas and experiences directly among peoples of different countries and diverse cultures.”
Two students out of Colorado University, Rolf Kjolseth, of Boulder, Colorado, and Andreas Kohlschutter, of Berne, Switzerland, decided to put Eisenhower’s idea into action by driving a jeep from the United States to Rio De Janeiro, where they planned to sell the jeep and return to the United State by ship. Along the way, they hoped to meet people from all walks of life. They called their jeep “Columbus II”.
June 24, 1957, Albuquerque Journal
The trip was sponsored by the U.S. Information Agency and the Pan American Union. The two young men were supposed to write about their trip and send their stories to several newspapers, but I can’t find any articles with their by-lines. They even had their photo take with then Vice President Richard Nixon on the steps of the U.S. Capitol, but I haven’t located a copy of that yet.
June 13, 1957, Greeley Daily Tribune
According to multiple reports, the intrepid explorers drove their early CJ-5 south from Laredo, Texas, through Mexico, into Central America and, probably via boat, made it to South America. The photos below show the pair in Colombia.
November 11, 1957, The Marion Star, Marion, Ohio,
I could not locate any information following their stop in Colombia.
At the very least, Rolf made it back to Colorado, becoming an associate professor at the University of Colorado from 1971-2011. I don’t know if Rolf is alive or not, but he does have an email address associated with UC. Whether he monitors it or not, I couldn’t say, but I sent him an email. Hopefully someone will respond.
This July 14, 1955, article from the Auburn Journal (Auburn, California) highlights the upcoming two day trip from Auburn, to Wentworth Springs and on to Lake Tahoe. It also includes a lists of some of the folks participating in the event. You’ll note there is no mention of it being a Jeep or Jeepers Jamboree.
William F. Baggerman in 1946 standing in front of his 1946 VEC CJ-2A. Behind the jeep is a trailer (a box on wheels). Standing to the side of the jeep is Charles Mum of the Laredo, Texas, AAA. William is just about to enter Mexico in 1946.
Wiliam F. Baggerman was born and raised in the St. Louis, Missouri, area around 1914. He attended Washington University and Edinburgh University. He started Modern Management Co., a real estate management firm, in 1936, and later was employed with Sycamore Investors, Inc., a shopping center development company.
He entered what would become the Air Force right after Pearl Harbor and spent 20 months in the Pacific theatre, stationed for at least part of the time in Guam. While in Guam, for some unknown reason, he decided to travel to Central America after the war.
A year after the war ended, he purchased a jeep and, along with a trailer, headed south to Laredo, Texas, where he began his adventure.
After his trip, he wrote an 60 page book: Driving to Managua, Nicaragua (A Guide to the PanAmerican Highway Through Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua).
The book is part guide book and part travelogue, as most of the text describes dryly how to travel through the various countries. Yet, the pics feel far more personal; there are at least 10 photos, almost all of which include the jeep. You can view the entire book online at Hathitrust.org.
The jeep he used appears to have been a VEC with indents and a column shift, but without the rear hubs. So, I’d guess a 15xxx to 30xxx serial number. The trailer is a box on wheels … anyone know what model?
Let’s look at some pics!
This is a map of the Pan American Highway. It’s not clear to me how much he veered off the highway:
This pic shows him just entering Mexico:
Those are some beautiful mountains. But who is looking at the mountains when you can peek inside the cab and see the column shifter:
Apparently, even the jeep couldn’t take William everywhere:
An October 18, 1949, article in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram announced Daniel M. Towns decision to drive a jeep from Magallanes, Chile, to Fairbanks, Alaska, then drive to Washington, D.C. He is hoping to be able to cross the Darien Gap rather than boat around it. He plans to use tracks on a jeep to get through the Gap. As of the date of the article, Willys-Overland (or a dealer) had already agreed to supply a jeep.
A few weeks later, Towns received some advice from Frank Buck, as described in a November 07, 1949, article in the Forth Worth Star-Telegram. Frank Buck died a few months later.
Just this update for Tuesday.
April 22, 1956, Los Angeles Times. Strangely, this photo was published months after arriving in Los Angeles (they were likely here in late December 1955 or early January of 1956). See map below.
The trio began and ended their trip in San Paulo, Brazil. This map shows that they passed Los Angeles on their way home, then headed east towards New Orleans, the trio’s last stop in the United States.
Most folks are already familiar with this trip, but I wanted to add these news reports to the database of Operation Pineapple information. One of the articles noted that the three travelers did not try an American hamburger, because hamburger was fed to dogs in Brazil.
This first article was published shortly after Jan Stekly arrived in New Orleans, because he wasn’t allowed to travel through Mexico. It was published in the August 11, 1955, issue of the Shreveport Journal:
August 11, 1955, issue of the Shreveport Journal. Jan Stekly is shown in the photo.
UPDATE IV: Here’s an another photo form 1978, this time it’s a good closeup of the hood.
View all the information on eBay
UPDATE III: Charles Chips — What happened to Bill Barriere, continued (see more info in below updates). (two years after the photo in UPDATE IV) In 1981 Bill launched Charles Chips of Palm Springs, a franchised(?) business that has specialized in home delivery of cookies, pretzels and other snacks in the United States since 1942
The next week, this photo and caption was published by the Desert Sun in Palm Springs, California. Bill’s adventurer-look was gone, replaced by a more casual-business-looking persona.
UPDATE II: This photo shows Bill on top of the jeep.
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Original Post January of 2019 …. UPDATE: Another photo of Bill Barriere and his jeep appeared on eBay (see below). That find sent me once again on the pursuit of the question, “What happened to Bill Barriere’s jeep trip?”. It turns out, he didn’t make it very far. During the early portion of his trip, he crashed into a bridge in the Yukon, which left him with a $7000 repair bill and $1700 tow bill (Yukon to Fairbanks). He decided to abandon the trip idea and, instead, become a mercenary fighter in Nicaragua (and drive his jeep there). Maybe some day I’ll figure out how his life as a mercenary fighter panned out.
The Palm Canyon jeep tour is still available through Red-Jeep Desert Adventures. Red-Jeep also offers other tours via jeeps.
Here’s one of their postcards on eBay
This article about exploring southern Utah in a jeep was published in the October 1958 issue of Sunset Magazine. You’ll see a nod to Kent Frost’s guide company and a photo of the front of one of his CJ-5s.
UPDATE: I’ve been looking for one of these since I first saw one on eBay in 2013. I scored one earlier this month on eBay. Along with it came the post card below.
Thanks to Joe for sharing this story about Ben and his family’s 3,270 mile trip in a 1957 wagon from Kansas to Yellowstone and back over the past few weeks.
You can view the trip here: http://www.oldwillysforum.com/forum/showthread.php?13689-YNP-by-Wagon-from-Kansas (there are 11 pages, but no page links at the bottom of the page, so advance to the next page using the links at the top.)
You can also view Ben’s 1957 wagon build here: http://www.oldwillysforum.com/forum/showthread.php?10450-My-1957-L6-226-Wagon-Build
