1945 Willys Jeep CJ-2A $2,000 Knoxville, TN
So obviously I’m not on board with the 1945, my guess is 1946. Being VEC no clue but I know some of you folks following along can look this over. The three hole mounting for the Ignition Switch is typically earlier for sure. The patina under the hood does not appear to be exactly from 1985, for $2k its not really worth figuring out the minor details, you never know maybe they tried to get this going recently or even 3 years ago and just could not.
At the end of this I’m going to toss in some background on the tires!
The tire pic is way cool, they are very old. The name is even older which thoroughly amazed me. The “Dayton Thorobred” like the horse but not spelled like the horse. What I was able to find was around September of 1917 Dayton Tire and Rubber Co. developed and tested the Dayton Thoroughbred, jump down for some more info…….
Information from seller:
Barn find ran in 85 when it was parked message with any questions willing to trade on motorcycles or trucks
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Tires What’s In a Name….
The tire are way cool, they are very old. The name is even older which thoroughly amazed me. The “Dayton Thorobred” like the horse but not spelled like the horse. What I was able to find was around September of 1917 Dayton Tire and Rubber Co. developed and tested the Dayton Thoroughbred,
Here is an ad from 1-6-1918 that notes the 4 months ago they do so….. Guess Sept 1917, they note Red Stripe side walls, in 1917, that’s pretty cool! If anyone has a red stripe 1917 Dayton Thoroughbred would love to see that. Have a spare will gladly display at the building even if its in way bad shape.
January 1918
Did not take long for them to increase the price! May 1918, but in this one the name is shortened to that Thorobred deal Typo? Not a clue but it for sure is named T H O R O B R E D in the shorten version later on….. must have been a name conflict is one guess I have.
May 1918
March 1919 Same Tread Pattern as the early Jan, 1918
Step up to 1923….. Name is still the Thorobred.
Jump to 1951, I did not really find the tread patten of the Jeep. But the name is still going.
1960 you can see those Dayton Thorobred Prem they kind of have the look of what’s on the rig.
I enjoyed the tire rabbit hole, it did eat into a lot of my Willys time for today, you will have these things.
Anything you notice on the CJ-2A let me know. I think it’s an 46, not necessarily VEC differently missing a lot from the VEC class in general if it happens to be close to one
Based on the ‘short’ pad/boss on the block behind the water pump (where the motor # is usually stamped), I believe it’s a War-time (or pre-war) engine (swapped-in sometime in the last 70+ years) …There is no bracket on the steering column that would indicate it had been a column shift VEC…I suspect it’s a ’46…
As always thanks for sharing some details!
arguably the the greatest thorobred race horse of all time, Man o War, was foaled in 1917 and raced in 1919 and 1920 winning 20 out of 21. the nation was transfixed on thorobred racing at the time needing relief from the WWI slaughter happening in europe. creative marketing in the name i’d say.
Cool background, thanks for sharing.
My Dad was in the Tire business for many decades and as a kid at times would go to the shops on Saturdays, after hours remember delivering wholesale Truck tires. He would piece together the Newspaper ads on the kitchen table for the sales and draw up the framework for the newspaper people. Design the radio ads and text for that. It was really cool. He transformed many Tire shops for owners from front showroom to shop and warehouse, it was a fun time for me to go visit as a kid, never boring.
I think a lot of mechanics visit this site. I’m not one of them. I look at this unit as something that if it runs and it can be used for some purpose keep it under cover. but if it breaks down or stops running there comes a point where it’s just not worth putting any money into it.
That could be a GPW radiator. The top radiator tank is GPW.
Could be a nice find if it has a WWII block.