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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 .
10 Pack make great give aways at Jeep Events, Cruise Nights or maybe pass them on to your local Automotive program at the VoTech. Maybe your company has some great Vendors who you purchase stuff from and want to say thanks to them. Also makes great door prizes and customer themed give aways for a Tricky-Tray basket to support a local cause. Lots of ideas for these.
The pictures are super and the overall quality of the Calendar just top notch!
If you are new to the Holy Toledo Calendar and The Dispatcher Magazine please check out their site and subscribe to their Magazine.
Back in 2019 Dave posted a eBay link to a East Penn Jeepers license plate that was originally Del and Ann Parker’s personal plate and we would like to reach out to the Willys community and see if anyone happens to have purchased this plate and has it in their collection.
The family would like to purchase the plate back for the family to give it back to them.
I can offer up an eWillys tee shirt as well to sweeten the pot!
Here is a photo of the plate, and then the old link.
OldWillysForum was started in 2009 as a way to bring together like minded Willys enthusiasts, create an open knowledge base for Willys Wagons, Pickups, Forward Control, CJ, Jeepster, and Aero, and to help find parts and services needed to keep these great American classic rigs on the road.
The forum has quickly grown into a community of friends, and one of the best places on the web for Willys. The site was put together in the garage on many weekends, over a few beers, like so many of our Willys. It is run by a one-man-band and is not corporate owned. It is a labor of love and with your support will continue to thrive.
If you have never checked out or it’s been a minute since you have seen Old Willys Forum please head over and take a look at what they have to offer, it’s a great group of like minded Willys folks.
They also do a few events each year, some smaller then others, but The Run For The Hills is a very popular event out west, this year was in Quincy, CA and was really great looking. It’s a well run and multiple Willys Vendor supported Event. Can’t stress enough how well our Willys Vendors support these outings all over the Country.
Photo Credit: Kurt
Photo Credit: Alan
In addition to making your normal introduction post over there, I made up a quick couple things that I think are useful to people new to Willys and even if you are returning or getting back in the game after a long time.
Hope your able to head over and check them out and see what we are up too over there!
Do you have a short write up on your favorite Willys Website, please consider submitting to me so I can share with others you can send them to: post@ewillys.com
Dave here: Nate shared this video of him heading out in the snow to do some maintenance. It looks like that rig is running great and moves really well over the snow. Thanks for taking the time to record it Nate!
The other day Nate forwarded me the following images of a Willys home power plant, built by both “Willys Light” and the “Electric Auto-Lite Corporation”. Not knowing much about any of this (and not having the time to source original info from newspapers of the time), I took a break from house painting to venture down internet rabbit holes. What follows is more of a work-in-progress than a finished piece. Hopefully, folks can add or correct the following.
Dave here: Seth and Roger both shared links to his Facebook post showing a Cutlas Automatic Hub, which is a rarity to see in the wild. That got me thinking that I’d never done a post about the different, early attempts at creating auto-engaging hubs, which appeared to generally be a failure (none ever caught on).
WARN INDUSTRIES Mid 1950s:
I believe the first commercial attempt at an automatic hub was Warn’s hub by that very name, the Warn Automatic hub. This hub appeared as early as 1954 in this brochure (from this post), Willys Motors was promoting the hub as of October of 1954.
Hugo Vidal, through his Brazilian company, AVM, also produced the Automatic Model, an example shown below (from this post):
According to Hugo, the technology was never perfected and customers had problems, so eventually the hubs were pulled from the market.
THOR AUTOMOTIVE early-mid 1960s:
The next production hub with claims to being automatic was the Thor Industries Automatic hub, advertising for which appeared in the early-mid 1960s in Four Wheeler Magazine. While the company’s Electro Hub was sort of automatic, in that you could electrically engage it from the dash, the compass Automatic Hub claimed to be fully automatic. Over the years I’ve seen a few of these, but again this hub didn’t become popular, though I don’t have any reports as to why.
This Thor ad appeared in the July 1963 issue of Four Wheeler Magazine (front this post):
Ad from the July 1963 issue of Four Wheeler Magazine
Here is an example of the hub. Allstate also private labeled this hub, as can be seen at the top of this post.
CUTLAS ENGINEERING early-mid 1970s:
Around 1960, Cutlas advertised an “Automatic” hub, but it wasn’t actually an automatic hub, but rather it had ‘automatic axle positioning’, which I believe meant that it made engaging the axles easier (so don’t be fooled by this advertising)!
While doing some book research, I ran across the Missouri Historical Society’s online archives, which includes some images of jeeps, mostly photos of jeeps at schools, probably related to bond drives. It may be of use for folks looking for military era jeep photos. https://mohistory.org/collections?text=jeep&images=0
Photo from the Missouri Historical Society, CREATOR: Sievers Studio. Miss Elengo, who probably worked for the Modern Beauty Shop magazine, is one of the clients and rights holders.
A reproduction of a photograph of American soldiers attempting to pull a Jeep out of the mud using a Holt tractor during the Battle of Okinawa (April 1-June 22, 1945). Photo from the Missouri Historical Society
UPDATE: Buz reached out to say this is still available. He dropped the price to $550.
Buz is selling this unique windshield frame for the M-38. He has the paper work from the Government and work order to document its origins. Contact Buz Kanzenbach via phone 757 403 9964 or email buzkan @ att.net (remove spaces around the @).
“Split M-38 windshield excellent shape. This is a rare item! Authorized By Order of the Army, The Secretary of The Army. When it was broken during the Korean War it was transferred from a 1 piece two a 2 piece, to save glass. I know of only 2 frames in existence.”
Here are a few others from the archives that might be M-38 split windshields
UPDATE: I was surprised to recently see a 1953 ad for a Farm ‘Jeep’ in the Nevada State Journal (March 05, 1953, pg 9). Remember that the Farm ‘Jeep’, along with the ‘Jeep’ Tractor, were models produced mostly in 1951 and 1952, along with a line of jeep implements.
As you can see from this timeline reproduced below from the CJ-3A.info page, there were very few Farm ‘Jeep’s produced at all and none in 1953, though a handful of CJ-3B Farm ‘Jeep’s were made (see CJ-3B page for more info on the 3B version). So the use of the ad is curious.
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Originally Published May 12, 2020: Each of the brochures has consecutive form numbers, from FS-514100 to FS-514105. The brochure below included extra digits at the front: FS-4 FS-514102.
Here’s the Willys Service Bulletin that announced the Kaiser Willys Supercharger, along with the manual and a few pics of a super charger at the bottom of the post (from a 2014 post).
UPDATE: I obtained a copy of this Kaiser Willys News, Volume 1, Number 4, off of ebay. Previously, all I had was a low resolution copy. This issue includes stories and photos about the Yakima Ridge Runners (last page).
Page 1 covers sales contents. Page two includes a short article about how a jeep won a road race in Las Vegas, but a search of vintage newspapers did not yield any more information. Page three is unusual in its description of the efforts to encourage wives to support their husband’s sales efforts.
Page 4 and 5 covers sales tips. Page 6 has an interesting diagram of an automatic transmission tools board, with enough detail to recreate it for a museum.
Page 7 includes a story with some details that might help someone recreate the 1954 Cavalcade of jeeps. As mentioned before, page 8 covers the Yakima Ridge Runners, among other stories.
