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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.
These quick searches can help you find things on eBay. People list in the wrong categories all the time, so don't be surprised to see brochures in the parts area for example. This section used to be split into jeeps, parts and other categories, but recent changes to eBay will require this information to be recoded.
The links to posts below show jeeps grouped by models, condition, and other ways. Some of these jeeps are for sale and others have been sold. If you are unsure whether a vehicle is still for sale or not, email me at d [at] ewillys.com for more info.
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.
Looking for parts and not sure where to go? There are a variety of large and small new and used parts sellers both online and offline.
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 .
I believe this is the first Advertising and Merchandise Bulletin that I have owned (or even seen). I bought several of these together on eBay. The particular one details the “600 series” of tri-fold brochures available during 1960 (which is one of those nagging issues I’ve always wondered about .. how many brochures were made). So, this answers that question. There were only 13 in that series.
When I get a chance, I’ll add links of images to this post.
I have been going through a whole two stuffed Willys Motors Equipment Books and documents as part of trying to organize the stuff I’ve purchased recently. I was surprised I hadn’t noticed this Warn manual when I first when through the books. I suspect (hope) I find some other cool items. This brochure has a form number of SR-456-4, which possibly means it was produced in April of 1956, but this is a version 4 of the manual.
UPDATE: This was previously published August 25, 2013.
This and other testimonials are from 1946 and were combined into a sales binder used by Willys Overland salesman.
This particular testimonial is by Davis Farm Contracting, Company, of Albany, Georgia.
This press release package is currently at $29.50 with three days to go. It’s unclear if this is a complete press kit or a partial one (seems partial to me given there is only one photo). The date on the photo suggests this kit may have been release September 16, 1959.
What’s interesting to me is that the 2-page document on the left is one of the few documents create by Willys Motors that explains that the new Surrey is the name of the model released domestically and that the Gala is the export name, though no explanation is given for the difference.
View all the information on eBay
Here is the document I mentioned. See the last sentence on the second page for the link between the Surreys and Galas>
This unusual jeep dealers point-award’s catalog on eBay has a buy-it-now price of $39.99. It’s an unusual item for sure. My understanding is that dealers (or sales folks?) earned points in various ways that they could redeem for items in the catalog. There’s a pretty extensive choice of items!
View all the information on ebay
“HERE IS A REALLY COOL AND QUITE RARE FIND!!
THIS IS A 1964 WILLYS JEEP DEALERS FAVORITE SPORTS CATALOG OF AWARDS…AN INCENTIVE PROMO FROM THE KAISER JEEP CORPORATION TO THE TOP DEALERSHIPS!! THIS LARGE ISSUE COMES IN THE ORIGINAL ENVELOPE ADDRESSED TO: MR. SIMON REDNOR FROM REDNOR & RAINEAR AUTO SALES OF TRENTON, NEW JERSEY…
THE ENVELOPE SHOWS AGE/USE WEAR, ALONG WITH SOME HAND WRITTEN PENCIL NUMBER TOTALS ON THE BACKSIDE..THE CATALOG
FEATURES SOME REALLY COOL MID CENTURY MODERN GIFTWARE, COOKWARE, SMALL & LARGE APPLIANCES, FURNITURE, WATCHES, JEWELRY, TOYS, GARDENING, CLOTHES AND MORE!!
PLUS THE VACTION SPOTS!!…THE CATALOG IS IN VERY GOOD CONDITION WITH SOME NORMAL AGE WEAR & THAT OLD PAPER SMELL..A WONDERFUL ADDITION TO YOUR WILLYS JEEP COLLECTION OR MID CENTURY MODERN COLLECTION!!”
UPDATE: This was originally published Aug 30, 2013.
Famous barnstormer and racing pilot Roscoe Turner endorsed the jeep in this 1946 letter.
UPDATE: It’s been almost nine years since I posted a series of Testimonials to the early jeeps that were part of a very rare early sales book. Most, but not all, included images. A friend of mine shared them with me. You can see them all here: http://www.ewillys.com/tag/1946-testimonials/
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Originally Posted September 16, 2013:
Here are several examples from Police Departments from the sales book:
And from New York City:
Cool bit of info, but the price is steep! I especially like the flier.
View all the information on eBay
“For sale is a vintage Pulaski Highway Motors, Willy’s Jeep Dealer, license plate topper, sales brochures and sales invoices. The topper has great color and graphics. The topper is 9 1/2″ x 3″. The papers are a nice piece of history.”
I ran across one of these manuals, then a search led to other years of this brochure. Below is information from eBay on the 1961, 1963, 1965 and 1966 manuals:
1) 1961 This is a COPY of the Bendix Radio Service Manual for Willys Motors (but at least it shows the pages) (or there is this original version for much more):
I thought I would score this incredibly rare July 24, 1946, Willys-Overland Press Release packet for the ‘Jeep” Station Wagon so I could share its contents with everyone, but $302 wasn’t high enough (it sold for $308). So, congrats to the winner. I did win a few other cool items though.
It’s construction and elements is similar to the previous year’s CJ-2A Press Release packet, documented here: http://www.ewillys.com/tag/1945-07-21-press-release-kit/?orderby=date&order=ASC&more=1
This documentation came from a friend. It accompanied a Sears Deluxe hardtop, though for some reason it shows the simpler hardtop instructions. Maybe the owner of this document lost the rest of the instructions? Either way, this might be useful to someone.
Later model Dualmatic-style-Free-Lock hubs. The name was originally part of the Free-Lock Hub Corporation
Ann’s longtime friend invited me to look at a jeep yesterday that they just inherited from her uncle. They were confused about the model, so hoped I could identify it.
From the front, the jeep was clearly an early M-38A1 (turned out to be a 1953), with the hinged grille and early fenders. The dash was also correct, the correct large hole fuel inlet, and it had the early M-38A1 cowl with screws. However, it also had a tail gate that didn’t appear added. The body itself was in great shape, yet the body wasn’t mounted using all the holes, in fact some holes were missing. The cowl also lacked both the “JEEP” stamps along the side of the cowl AND the passenger side indent common for M-38A1 bodies.
Thankfully, the uncle had kept receipts, one of which was an invoice for a replacement body. Aha, that’s why it did not have JEEP or WILLYs stamped anywhere.
But, more interesting to me than the jeep, was that another document they had was an original set of instructions for Free-Lock hubs (more on Free-Lock Hubs), the style that looks just like the Dualmatic hubs. This is the first time I’ve been able to document that at some point Free Lock branded hubs were made exactly the same as Dualmatic hubs.
As you can see in the two images below, we have basically the same set of instructions for both hubs, with one that is labeled Free-Lock and the other Dualmatic. The Dualmatic is dated “8-28-74”, which the Free-Lock has hand written instructions, which I believe indicates the Free-Lock hub instructions were from an earlier date.
Free-Lock document:
Dualmatic document:
These two pics show a few more details, including that there are two sets of screws on opposite sides of the hub.
