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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 .
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).
Kaiser Supercharger Manual:
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.
UPDATE: I only had small ebay pics of this issue for years, but I was finally able to win a copy off of eBay. Plus, at the bottom is a notebook that must have been given out at the Hotel Astor event pictured on the top front page. I expect there is a Vol 1, No 1 issue out there somewhere, but I don’t have any pics of it yet.
You’ll notice this issue focuses primarily on the Willys cars, though there are two photos of a CJ-3B. Give the Willys-asset purchase was begun only nine months earlier, maybe the execs were still figuring out how they wanted to talk about the 4WD related vehicles?
Note book from February 1954 meeting. Other than the front page, it’s a series of lined-pages for taking notes.
UPDATE: I’d never seen this brochure before finding it on eBay. This is part of what was a vast vintage jeep doc and toy collection in New England. I’ve bought a few cool things from him.
As for a date on this four-page brochure, I’d say, given the patent date of 1948, that this brochure might have also been printed in 1948, especially given the CJ-2A. My guess is that Mr. Keyser didn’t make enough money to warrant any future reproductions of it. But, that’s only a guess.
While I’ve always called this a K and K mower (that’s the manufacturer), the brochure and data tag describes it as a Jeep Mower Bar (see pics at very bottom).
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ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED MAY 17, 2019: In February of 1948 Allan Keyser filed a patent for a side mower. It appears this became the design for the K And K Manufacturing Company’s Mower as seen in the brochures at bottom. You can view other early mowing apparatuses here. Interesting that this came out of Colorado. I wouldn’t have guessed it.
“This invention relates to a mower attachment for the presently popular small, four-wheel drive, automotive vehicles popularly known as jeeps, and has for its principal object the provision of means whereby a mower bar can be quickly and easily attached to, or detached from, the vehicle so that it will be easily visible and easily controlled by the driver of the vehicle.
Another object of the invention is to provide highly efficient means whereby the angle of attack of a mower bar may be adjusted to suit the desires of the user and the requirements of the particular crop being harvested.”
UPDATE: I bought the Spanish version of this brochure off of eBay, so I’m adding it to this post. The Spanish version is Forma H1-3-59.
I won this rare early (first) Gala Brochure off of eBay. It is Form H1-3-59. The marketing document appears aimed at resorts and other tourist businesses. Interestingly, it appears conceptual in scope and doesn’t show any of the actual models available, other than what Las Brisas had done with DJ-3As. Note that on the back page it encourages interested parties to write to “Gala Plan, Willys Export Corp., Toledo 1, Ohio, U.S.A.”
Page 1:
Page 2:
I 2012 I purchased this July 1951 brochure, an 11-page “Your Opportunity to Profit with Willys” (from number FB 1 4CM-751 GG). At that point, I hadn’t bought many brochures before winning it on eBay. Unlike 99% of Willys-Overland brochures, this one was unique, because it targeted potential Willys Dealership owners.
The reason I bought it, and the reason I never published it (only now remembering that I hadn’t), was that it was the foundational piece for my idea for a jeep museum. It was the backbone, the narrative that I wanted to course through the entire experience. It was the type of business case study (example study), that I had read many times while getting my MBA, but rather it being on paper, it was an experience.
The overriding question centered on the brochure. If it was 1951 and you had the means and opportunity to invest in a Willys-Overland franchise, should you?
A ROUGH MUSEUM OUTLINE:
Folks would begin the museum in a room with a 1950s feel. A presentation would begin with the look and feel of a 1950s commercial, except this would be trying to sell folks on the WO franchise. The video would end encouraging folks to take.a walk through history to better get to know Willys-Overland’s roots, starting with a Pre-WWII display, with 1920s and 1930s music, showing and explaining the history. It would be intimate, quiet, peaceful.
The next room would be the drums of war, the approach of WWII, the early development of Recon car options, ending with the Bantam/Ford/Willys options, with Willys winning the bid, just in time for the US to enter WWII.
Folks. would enter to the sounds of war. Maps would show jeeps being lease-lent all over the world, Britain, Africa, Indonesia, Australia, etc. The room underscores the the wide uses for the jeep (and GPA and other oddities).
As the war was being waged, visitors would encounter a more pastoral room, a relief from the war, showing WO experiments with jeeps and farming. It would also demonstrate Willys attempts to advertise the jeep, linking the willys and jeep brand, whenever they could, until the FTC case and the Ford lawsuit caused WO to shift their branding ideas.
The next room would be the introduction of the CJ-2A, the ads, the multiple implements, the implement companies. The next room would show the competitive landscape, with Willys adding other vehicles, and how the big three were responding (and how consumers were responding). Also highlighted would be WO’s continuing shift in brand marketing, the shift away from Jeep as the overriding brand to Willys as the over riding brand.
Subsequently, visitors would be taken into a unique room, showcasing the newly introduced Hurricane engine, but this would be a bigger-than-life walkthrough engine in plexiglass, so folks could look below at a crankshaft turning, a camshaft above, pistons to one side, etc. It would be a truly unique experience.
At this point in the museum, visitors would face reach the time period of the brochure. It’s the point in all business cases: What’s the decision, to invest or not to invest.
At this point visitors transition to the troubles at W-O and the decision to sell out to Henry Kaiser. The finally room showcase the Kaiser years, as the company took control of Willys assets and focused back on the unique 4WD capabilities of the jeep lineup, while also embracing “JEEP” as the brand.
The museum ends at 1963, when Kaiser shifts to more modern vehicles, such as the Wagoneer and Gladiator, and how those vehicles pushed sales to new heights, as well as a push away from jeeps as pure utility vehicles and more as a fun, family, or sporty vehicle.
Anyway, that was the plan, but time and resources never quite materialized.
Ann and I visited a lot of museums on the way to developing ideas in hopes of creating an experience that would bring in folks from outside of the jeep world, because based on my early research into auto museums, if it doesn’t cater to non-jeep folks, it likely won’t generate the income necessary to sustain itself.
UPDATE II: If you want to email me directly, feel free to use d@deilers.com (not d@ewillys.com, which hasn’t worked for a few years).
UPDATES: I greatly appreciate all the kind words. I see there are some questions, so let me answer them…
I hope that additional info helps!!
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I have decided to shut down eWillys. At this time, I don’t plan to do any more updates.
Thanks to everyone who were able to use it, read it, all those who commented, and the many domestic and international friends Ann and I have made over the past 17 years.
The site will remain up until the end of the 2024 year. I hope to figure out a way to republish some of the unique information the site has on it in a different, less expensive manor.
Best wishes all. It’s been a good run.
After successive waves of cleaning, I’ve organized my nuts, bolts, washers, and oddities into similar sizes, thread counts, types, sizes, kinds, etc. This Harbor Freight organizer is hardly perfect, but it should be much easier to locate things (I hope). I fully expect the rear tab on plastic containers that holds them to a thin vertical plate to eventually break. But, until then, this keep me a little more organized.
UPDATE: This is a very old post (which likely needs updating), but Mauri added a nice addition to it, a video of Jay Leno driving this rig.
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Originally posted April 28, 2011: The National Automobile Museum (the Harrah Collection) in Reno, Nevada, opened in 1989. Most of the collection is based on Bill Harrah’s (gaming pioneer and avid collector) automobile collection. Following Bill’s death in 1978, the Holiday Corporation bought Harrah’s Hotels/Casinos and more, including the collection. Then Holiday announced they were going to sell the cars. This ticked off Nevadans, so the governor stepped in and helped negotiate a donation of the cars by Holiday to a special non profit organization established for the purposes of a museum.
The museum was named among the top ten museums by Car Collector magazine, has been ranked as one of the best 16 car museums in the world by Autoweek, and has been selected the best Museum in Northern Nevada in Nevada Magazines’ Annual Readers Poll.
The collection appears to have only two jeeps. One is a slightly modded CJ-5; the other is a Wagoneer that was outfitted with a Ferrari engine and called a Jerrari.
Here is the Jerrari as photographed by RenoDesertFox from Flickr. Note the color of the first image is the correct color and the remaining images have had the colors tweaked by the photographer, but still show a good deal of detail.
1. Front view of the Jerrari (link to original)
2. Color has been tweaked. (link to original)
3. The Ferarri engine. (link to original)
4. Click on the image to more easily read the history. (link to original)
1. Here is the one image I have, again via RenoDesertFox, of the 1972 CJ-5 on display. (link to original)
It’s been another busy month here at eWillys HQ, though little involved jeeps. That said, I did get the race jeep cleaned up and the thermostat replaced on Sunday. I”m hoping to test the thermostat out later today, once my eyes recover from being dilated.
My eyes were dilated, because I had my cataract consultation this morning; they saw no problems doing the surgery on both eyes, so I will be proceeding forward on that! Having worn glasses since the 9th grade, I can’t tell you how excited I am to be able to have 20/20 farsightedness! My eyes are pretty wonky at this point, with many of these updates done with just one less-than-perfect eye (and the other terrible). I am positive I’m making mistakes.
On the home front, we did minor decorations for halloween (no one comes by anyone). Ann had the brilliant, simple idea, to turn our house into a ghoul. It looks best from the road:
This is how it looks closer up and less dark (a bit more hokey):.
Halloween decorations will come down soon, quickly replaced with Xmas decorations.
One afternoon a couple days ago Ann and I heard a bang. We didn’t really think anyone of it until I wandered out to shut our driveway gate, when I encountered a beat up mailbox. It look like someone used it for batting practice (a quick tour of the neighborhood reveal a couple more smashed boxes). Having some body tools around, I brought the box back to life and it looks nearly as good as it did before, just with a little more character. At someone point I’ll add a barrier to stop this from happening again.
After some tender love:
Ann finally harvested her Poblano peppers, so I spent some time roasting them, skinning and de-seeding them, before freezing them. They’ll make some yummy meals.
Apart from all that, fall chores have taken priority, such as falling leaves, shutting down irrigations systems, along with much more. I’m sure most of you can relate!
Happy Halloween everyone!
