emailNeed to contact me and don't have my email? Click on email button.
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 .
A November 11, 1949, article in the Saturday Evening Post included these two pics of an Auto Club of Southern California CJ-2A.
Most of you have probably seen this, but for documentation purposes, this high-flying kid in a toy jeep made the cover the January 30, 1943, issue of Collier’s Magazine. There are a couple pretty cheap issues on eBay.
This photo was published in the November 20, 1943, issue of the Saturday Evening Post.
UPDATE: The complete set of plans for the Wander Wagon is shown below. Previously, I’d only had the first part of the build scanned.
In 1948 Popular Homecraft Magazine did a two article series on the construction of a home built Jeep Station Wagon. The name for the custom wagon was the Wander Wagon Junior. The project was shared with readers over two issues, the 1948 Jan-Feb issue and the 1948 Mar-Apr issue. I was finally able to locate a copy of the Mar-Apr issue, so now the full build is shown below.
PART I: January-February 1948 issue:
These pics were part of an article in the November 11, 1945, issue of Colliers.
Steve Bovee just contacted me about the upcoming 70th anniversary of the De Anza Jeep Cavalcade, aka Hemet-Borrego Jeep Cavalcade.
He writes, “Willys Jeeps and Flat Fenders Welcome … Next month will be the 70th anniversary of the De Anza Jeep Cavalcade aka Hemet-Borrego Jeep Cavalcade. Some 400 vehicles, mostly Willys Jeeps, went on this epic off-roading event April 2, 1949.
To celebrate the anniversary a few flat fenders will be getting together on April 6th and will be retracing the original route, as much as possible. There might be several starting points, but the main one will be in Hemet and as in the first run we will travel south through Battista Canyon, stop in Anza for a snack and photo shoot and then head out to Coyote Canyon. Coyote Canyon part of the trail is for the brave at heart and there is only one way in and one way out so I’m sure some of us will stop there.”
You can read more about the original Cavalcade in this July 1979 article from Desert Magazine (below), which can also be found on Archive.org.
This Collier’s cartoon ran in the July 31, 1943, issue of Collier’s Magazine, page 56.
UPDATE 3: There are some broken links, so I’ll need to spend some time and clean up this post.
UPDATE 2: Daniel Strohl over at Hemmings provided a solid background update about Wally Cohn.
“Born in 1924 in Germany, his father and stepmother sent him to the Chicago area in 1937 both to live with family and to escape the increasingly anti-Semitic mood in Germany. After Kristallnacht, his older brother Herman, his father Siegfried, and his stepmother joined him in Chicago. Walter flew 30 missions for the U.S. Army Air Corps as a bombardier during the war, earning a Distinguished Flying Cross and a Bronze Star and rising at least to the rank of Sergeant. After the war, he served as a member of the chief justice’s staff during the war crimes trials in Nuremberg, then returned to the United States and founded W&W Foreign Auto Parts in Blue Island, Illinois.”
UPDATE: A reader named Clint just determined what type of vehicle Wally was using — A 1936-1940 Opel Olympia. Here are two links to images: Link 1 & Link 2. Thanks Clint!
ORIGINAL POST published in 2010: I ran across the images shown below and others. I didn’t think much of them until I looked more closely. It appears the builder, who I assume is Wally Cohn, has merged a 1936-1940 Opel Olympia with a MB to create, arguably, the first Jeepster-like vehicle, except it is four wheel drive. The ‘Wally’ appears to use the entire jeep drive train. If you look in back, you’ll even see this car can tow a trailer!
Who is Wally Cohn? I have no idea. I can’t seem to find anything about him, other than his name was Wally Cohn and he was nicknamed the Jeep King by photographer Walter Sanders.
Photographer Walter (Wally) Sanders worked for Life Magazine from 1944 to 1961. After growing up and leaving Germany for the US in 1937, he returned in early 1946 and lived the rest of his life in Europe, mostly in Munich. You can learn more about his biography here.
Because Walter was in Europe during December of 1946, and because these photos were snapped during that month, and because of Wally’s uniform (which Bob noted is an Army Airforce Uniform), I have concluded that Wally Cohn was a member of the armed services trying to merge cars and jeeps into a Wally vehicle of some kind (note the name Wally is displayed prominently on the dash in one of the pics).
This would be a great collector’s item — and a cool jeep too!
Canada’s Maclean’s Magazine featured an illustrated jeep on the cover of its October 1, 1945, issue. Though there’s no specific article about the jeep, you can read the entire issue online (and many other issues) here: https://archive.macleans.ca/issue/19451001#!&pid=0_1
As a side note, though Canada and the US (and Great Britain) all declared war against Japan on December 8th, 1941, on December 7th, 1941, four hours after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, 2000 Canadian troops along with 12,000 Chinese (and British?) troops, attacked a Japanese force of 52,000 strong in Hong Kong. The fighting lasted for three weeks. The Japanese prevailed, but they suffered significant losses.
UPDATE II: Bob Westerman shared a few cage photos he’s found during his research:
UPDATE: Dan tracked down this detailed explanation of the Squirrel Cage: http://weaponews.com/weapons/16209-a-system-for-increasing-the-patency-of-the-squirrel-cage-usa.html
The November 9, 1948, issue of the Evening Star ran a short article on the Squirrel Cage. A February 1949 issue of Mechanix Magazine ran the same photo (and it’s more clear).
The Evening Star photo and caption:
The Modern Mechanix photo and caption:
