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About eWillys
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.
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 .
UPDATE: Here are a couple more articles introduction the Jeep Surrey. The first one notes that women will like it for its fashion while men will like it for its fine engineering. I’m less convinced that the term ‘fine-engineering’ should be applied to any of the DJ-3As.
The second was widely disseminated in various arrangements and reminds us that “A similar model, the “Jeep” Gala, was introduced to the export market early this year .“ This documents that the Gala was the export model and the Surrey the domestic model.
This first article was published October 08, 1959, and comes from Utah’s Orem-Geneva Times:
This October 04, 1959, article published in the Cincinnati Enquirer.
1954 Form KW-1706 Brochures, early (orange) and late (green) versions.
UPDATE: For a few years now I’ve noticed that there were two versions of the 1954 Form KW-1706 titled ‘Jeep’ FARM POWER, one having an orange theme and one have a green theme. Since I owned an orange copy, I wasn’t in a hurry to get a green copy. Still, I was curious about why the newly formed Kaiser Willys Marking Team would publish a brochure, with the same form number, in two different colors, as that wasn’t a customary practice.
A few days ago I found a good price on the green version. When it arrived, I compared the two brochures. At first, I couldn’t see any differences. But, after examining the text, I discovered the reason behind the color change.
A small section on both brochures is titled “NEBRASKA TESTED”. Apparently, when the original orange brochure was produced, the jeep had only completed a tractor test (#432) using a jeep powered with an L-head, yet the company had applied to take the test using an f-head. At some point after the brochure was published, the f-head test (#502) was completed (which did show increased horsepower).
So, the company updated the brochure’s “NEBRASKA TESTED” text and changed the brochure’s color scheme, probably to make it easier to know which old brochures should be set aside and/or destroyed. At least, that’s my theory.
So, here’s a look at the two blurbs side by side.
Comparison of early (orange) and later (green) versions of the 1954 ‘Jeep’ Farm Power brochure.
I’d never heard of Berens before spotting this 48-page catalog on eBay. It appears they were a California distributor of jeep parts. The company carried all kinds of stuff.
UPDATE: I was finally able to get one of these off eBay at a reasonable price. It’s form W-1831 from 1955 introducing the new CJ-5. The back page (bottom pic) has some discoloration. The 3rd pic is a foldout, so it’s much bigger than it appears.
Blaine and Terry have identified this jeep as a Fix-it-All jeep. It’s missing multiple parts. Here’s a pic of how it should look:
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Blaine spotted this unusual plastic jeep that neither of us had previously seen. The fact that it is stamped “JEEP” on the hood and has a front weight are two unusual features that caught our eyes. Anyone recognize it? (this auction site has multiple premiums that will add to the cost).
In March 1962, two different articles highlighted the introduction of the Jeep line of Tonka Toys.
1. Toys and Novelties Magazine: The article in this magazine noted that part of the reason the Tonka company had the financial and physical capacity to produce a wide variety of toy jeeps was that it had recently gone public.
As reported in this post, in 1962 the Tonka company launched the jeep models many of us owned as kids (and some of us still own as adults). It didn’t take long for Tonka to introduce specialized packaging as well. The August 1962 issue of Playthings Magazine highlighted three different Dispatcher Tonka Toys, with Hatari-themed boxes, that were for sale in the lobby of movie theaters while Hatari played in theatres.
Harmen-Jan of the Netherlands shared this video of farm life footage filmed in the Netherlands between 1920 and 1960. At the 15-minute-mark there is footage of a WWII jeep piling what I believe is hay(?) and at the 19-minute-mark there is a brief look at the same jeep pulling an overloaded wagon. In between (and before and after both marks), plenty of back-breaking-work is documented.
UPDATE: The article below is one of a number of articles highlighting the “JEEP” Tractor from Minneapolis-Moline Implement Company: The NTX. One or both units were also tested at Holabird, so the term ‘jeep’ used to describe a vehicle didn’t originate with the Bantam, Ford, or Willys prototypes.
Published in the Lansing State Journal, Lansing, Michigan, August 22, 1940.
According to a Hemmings article, the name ‘Jeep’ originated with Sergeant James O’Brian in August of 1940:
The UTX went to the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland, but earned its place in history in August 1940 at Camp Ripley, Minnesota, when Sergeant James T. O’Brien of the 109th Ordnance Company of the Minnesota National Guard noted the overall proficiency of the tractors, especially when pulling a stuck howitzer out of the mud. Inspired by the “Eugene the Jeep” character in the Popeye comic strip, O’Brien first hung from the tractor’s radiator cap a sign painted with the word “Jeep,” then painted the word “Jeep” itself on the flanks of the tractor.
Minneapolis-Moline chronicled the christening in a wartime advertisement: “This new MM army vehicle was not a crawler, tractor, truck nor tank, and yet it could do almost anything and it knew all the answers. Because of this, it brought to mind the Popeye cartoon figure called ‘Jeep’ which was neither fowl nor beast, but knew all the answers and could do almost anything.”
However, the short comings of the NTX coupled with the introduction of the Bantam BRC in late September doomed the 6 NTXs produced to the role of a jeep footnote.
It doesn’t mean the NTX isn’t worth anything. An NTX in 2012 fetched $29,000 at an auction.
UPDATE: Vince shared an article from autoblog.com that provides more information on the Rainbow Sheikh (Sheigh Hamad bin Hamdan) who built the world’s largest running jeep. It had been many years since my last post on the subject, so it was time to update this post.
In 2010, reports were that Guinness Book of World Records had recognized the jeep as the largest running jeep in the world; however, I could not verify the record through the Guinness web site. Recently, a huge CJ-5 built by the same Shiekh for his offload museum may have surpassed the flat fender.
Published in April of 2009: I thought it was just a fake keep prop of some kind, but apparently it’s being built on the framework of a large quarry mining truck.
