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Long Range Desert Group Lighter

• CATEGORIES: Features • TAGS: This site contains affiliate links for which I may be compensated.

This tiny LRDG-styled lighter is something I’d been keeping an eye out for. It’s smaller than I expected, just slightly larger than a biz card (or in this case a Fred Smiley’s old club card, which is something that accompanied a different purchase). I forgot to take a photo of the bottom, but there’s no identifying information there.lighter-lrdf1 lighter-lrdf2 lighter-lrdf3 lighter-lrdf4 lighter-lrdf5

 

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1949 Slide Showing Billboard w/ Wagon on eBay

• CATEGORIES: Advertising & Brochures, Features This site contains affiliate links for which I may be compensated.

UPDATE: Matt thought I should add this billboard to this thread.

setaro-motors-fc

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This really neat color slide documents a Setaro’s Willys Motors Billboard ad. The only issue I see is the price of $79.99! Setaros was in New Haven, CT. I’ve included an ad published in the Yale Daily News Newspaper from January 13, 1948.

View all the information on eBay

“Original Kodachrome Red Border Slide 1949 – Jeep Station Wagon Billboard. Beautiful vintage original slide. Comes as shown and described. Very rare!”

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This is the newspaper ad from the Yale newspaper historical library archives:

1948-01-13-yale-daily-news-jeep-ad-setaros

 

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Frank Sinatra’s GPW

• CATEGORIES: Features This site contains affiliate links for which I may be compensated.

UPDATE: Thanks to pics posted to Facebook by Ken Wyatt, we now know that Frank’s GPW has moved to the lobby at the Golden Hotel, Ascend Hotel Collection.

frank-sinatra-jeep-golden-colorado-hotel2 frank-sinatra-jeep-golden-colorado-hotel3 frank-sinatra-jeep-golden-colorado-hotel4

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Originally posted September 27, 2018: Gordon mentioned to me that Frank Sinatra had once owned a GPW. So, I spent some time searching for Sinatra and jeeps. Here’s what I have so far:

Franks GPW went to a Sotheby’s auction in 2003 (which listed it as a 1942 GPW),

frank-sinatra-gpw

then to a Barrett Jackson auction in 2005 (which listed it as a 1944).

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It now resides in the Tebo Museum (private museum approx 400 vehicles) collection (Facebook link) (Flicker Link). Here’s how the jeep is presented:

frank-sinatra-gpw2

Back when Frank built his home in 1947 at Palm Springs, California, his daughter noted that the town was still small and the roads rough, so “We . . . needed our jeep to manage the dirt roads, sand dunes, and tumbleweeds,” No indication as to what jeep model this was.

Of course, Frank spent some time in jeeps while acting. For example, this still photo from a French eBay page of Sinatra in a jeep is from his 1958 film “Kings Go Forth”.

1958-sinatra-kings-go-forth

According to an April 1966 Esquire magazine article,

“At other times, aiming to please, his men will overreact to his desires: when he casually observed that his big orange desert jeep in Palm Springs seemed in need of a new painting, the word was swiftly passed down through the channels, becoming ever more urgent as it went, until finally it was a command that the jeep be painted now, immediately, yesterday. To accomplish this would require the hiring of a special crew of painters to work all night, at overtime rates; which, in turn, meant that the order had to be bucked back up the line for further approval. When it finally got back to Sinatra’s desk, he did not know what it was all about; after he had figured it out he confessed, with a tired look on his face, that he did not care when the hell they painted the jeep.”

According to the “Remarkable Cars” website, this 1941? MB was used during the filming of the dirty dozen, then purchased by Sinatra, who then gave it to Burt Reynolds. It is now located in the Star Cars Museum in Gatlinburg, Tennessee.

1941-willys-jeep-sinatra-burt-reynolds

I’m sure there’s much more out there. I’ll add to this thread as I learn more.

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