UPDATE:  Thanks to Dave, we have some additional Koenig history: 

“The son of the founder built the company up into a successful business making winches, “truck bodies”, and other stuff. His name was Herbert Koenig and he died in 2011 at age 95. An obit mentions that Koenig Iron Works (of Houston) was sold in 1978, and is now known as “RKI” and makes truck equipment (in Houston). They are RKI-US.com. Nothing indicates they care about Jeeps anymore!

Also, a Danish guy seems to have a website named Koenigwinches.com and it seems he makes parts for Koenig winches.”

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Original Post November 2019: 

This is a good example of simple post that spun out of control. Initially, I wanted to look at some changes in Koenig’s CJ-5 hardtop model numbers over the years; But, that then expanded to a look at twenty years (or so) of brochures.

THE EARLY YEARS:

The timeline of the early Koenig brochures are pretty easy to identify based on the jeeps used. In later years, Koenig began using numbered ‘bulletins’ to identify brochures. At first, I thought the numbered bulletins should be ordered by ascending number, but after closer examination, I the later two digits of each bulletin number reflect the year of the brochure. As you will see, other brochure elements back this theory.

Before we start, you can find installation instructions for some Koenig hardtops here.

The earliest Koenig brochure I can find was published in an early Willys-Overland Equipment brochure (1949?). The models consisted of “Full Cab” and “Half Cab”. This brochure was included among a surprisingly large number of hardtop competitors’ brochures, including Worman tops, CarsonCraft tops, Boston Top tops, Sturdee tops, Porter & Reed tops, Body V7 Works tops, Blue Star tops, Lambert tops, Hills Custom Built tops and Meyers tops (which became sears tops and a company that was different from the one that produced later Meyer tops).

This brochure circa 1949 showed half and full cabs on a CJ-3A:

Continue reading →

UPDATE: This post started out as a post about Koenig hardtops, but that lead to updates on the Car Craft and Blue Star hardtops. I should have the Koenig post done for Saturday morning.

This updated post provides more info on the CARCRAFT hardtop. An early Special Equipment catalog contained two different versions of the Carson Machine & Supply Company’s Car Craft brochure. I’ve added a third brochure at the bottom which I’d found off of eBay years ago. Here are two real-world examples: one jeep and another jeep.

This brochure was published back in 2017. It features a CJ-2A and does not have the stylized CARCRAFT branding. Instead, it shows a plain “Car Craft” brand with a space added.

This is the first time I’ve published this brochure. It includes the new CARCRAFT branding and used a CJ-3A jeep:

This brochure was available on eBay in 2013.  It appears to be the company’s signature brochure for the hardtop. I haven’t tracked down another copy:

Continue reading →

Rooney77’s Blue Star Top for sale

UPDATE: This post from 2014 has been updated with additional brochure examples. See all the Blue Star hardtops documented thus far:

(From 2014) This Blue Star aluminum top was built by the Blue Manufacturing Company, founded in Kansas by Max Blue circa 1946. ‘Blue Star’ was the brand name used on several products he produced.  There’s some conflicting information, but it appears In 1946 Blue Manufacturing was building aluminum airline parts. About that time, as a hobby, Max began building aluminum boats. He also tried manufacturing and selling jeep hard tops.

Demand was so great for the boats that in 1948 he leased space and built boats full-time. Meanwhile, he either sold or abandoned the jeep top business altogether. Given only a few Blue Star tops have surfaced over the last few years, I imagine he didn’t sell too many of them.

However, Max was able to sell boats. By 1953 the company was building 1,000 boats a year. In July of 1953 he moved the company from Goddard, Kansas, to Miami, Oklahoma. There are various articles into 1960 that talk about the Blue Manufacturing Company. However, the company appears to have ceased boat production in 1964.

A picture of Max Blue in the center of the photo. http://newspaperarchive.com/us/missouri/joplin/joplin-globe/1960/04-17/page-6

This brochure featuring a CJ-2A is the earliest example I have of this top. It was part of an early industrial equipment book.

Here’s another example, this time with a CJ-3A:

Here’s an ad that was featured on eBay.

Here’s an example of the logo badge:

Here is an example of the half tops:

Actual top:

Here are some photos of actual full hardtops:

During the summer of 2013 a seller on eBay had two jeeps with Blue Star tops for sale:

Jeep 1)

Jeep 2)