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:

Continue reading →

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.

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 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.

January 09, 1982, the Desert Sun newspaper.

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. 

Continue reading →

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

Scott shared a link to this 1952 story about eleven Boy Scouts who drove for 73 days across the country and back in a single Willys truck. It’s worth a read:

http://www.oldwillysforum.com/forum/showthread.php?13083-5000-miles-73-days-11-Boy-Scouts-1-Jeep-Truck

Here’s how the story begins: “In the summer of 1952 I was one of 11 Boy Scouts from Glen Ridge who joined Troop 3 Scoutmaster George Gimbel on a 73-day cross-country adventure. The trip took in 22states and two Canadian provinces. Nineteen fifty-two was years before the construction of the Interstate Highway System, so all of our travel was via state and local roads. We saw the country up-close. We camped out every night in national parks, state forests, and Boy Scout camps.”