Juan wrote to me the other day. He wanted to share his life long passion with jeeps that started when he was a young boy in Coatepec, Veracruz, Mexico. Juan doesn’t speak English and my Spanish isn’t much better, so I have done my best to translate his email (and any mistakes are my fault).  Thanks for sharing Juan!

DAVE good afternoon.

I am a 60 year old retired Veterinarian. My Father was born and lived in Coatepec, Veracruz, Mexico, land of the best coffee. My father always used Willys jeeps or trucks to access our ranch because they were the only vehicles that could make it. When I was eighteen months of age he gave me Kings Pedal Jeep as a gift and I treasured it.

In 1969 I left my country and moved to the port of Veracruz to study veterinary and animal science. I went to work at the state of Oaxaca. Each week or two back I returned home to help my father in his old age. When I retired, I return to Coatepec to launch a small veterinary pharmacy. My parents had both passed away by that time. After returning home, I found that many friends asked about my father and whether he had any jeep parts for sale. After enough requests, I got the idea to buy some jeeps and rebuild them or part them out.

In 2007 one of my children taught me to use the computer and showed me lots of different willys sites. After seeing the Willys clubs in Colombia, I got the idea to form a Coatepec Willys clubs with some friends. We changed the name to Jeeperos Coatepec, because we have many friends that had 4×4 vehicles other than Willys. We hung out every month, attended cultural events, sports exhibitions, and were invited to participate in events on the beaches of Veracruz chachalacas, where every year all the republic clubs totaling more than 200 jeeps gathered. We have participated in movies of Che Guevara Arnold, in a French movie, in some commercials, and more.

Unfortunately, one of my children died eight months ago. This depressed me to the point where I stopped wheeling and being active in the group. However, I have slowly been overcoming this tragedy with help from my friends. And, thanks to websites like yours, I feel more motivated to keep up with my jeeps. We hope some day you can make it down here [editor’s note . . . so do I!]. If you do, you can enjoy a jeep ride through the plantation, canals and farms of these places .

In the first three photos below show the small collection I have. A 1947 CJ-2A, 1953 CJ-3B, a CJ-5, a CJ-7 and more.

Many Thanks. 

Juan Lopez Badillo

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From these first three pictures you can see that Juan has a nice variety of complete and incomplete jeeps.

This has the potential for a Colorado Tour Rig!

There are some other photos that Juan included: