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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 .
This April 30, 1957, article highlights the speedy service it’s red-themed jeeps and other delivery vehicles make possible. Attempts to learn more about this shop were unsuccessful, as there is a singer from the region named Wheeler Walker, so his stuff dominates the search returns.
UPDATE: A newspaper article from May 20, 1950, published in the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, provides more information about the jeep-driving circus chimp named Nero. He passed away later in the year.
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Originally Posted January of 2013: This 1950 postcard shows some chimpanzees driving a battery powered jeep. They were part of a Chimpanzee show at the St. Louis zoo started in 1925. Chimps were taught to ride bicycles, tricycles, motorcycles, ponies, a Great Dane, and more. You can learn more about them in the January 8, 1951, issue of Life Magazine.
“VINTAGE POSTCARD – CONDITION: VG. DATE/ERA: 1950s-60s. Standard Size 3.5×5.5.”
View all the information on eBay
You can view some additional pictures at Jalopy Journal (scroll part way down the page). The quality seems good enough that they may be from Life Magazine, but I tried, but failed to locate their original source. Here is one of the images.
On December 13, 1950, several newspapers announced that Nero had passed away. Here’s an article from the Southern Illinoisan:
This October 30, 1945, photo coverage from the Rocky Mount Telegram, out of North Carolina, highlights the start of the 8th War Loan drive. It included a photo of a Willys MA leading a series of elephants.
This May 10, 1951, article in the Abilene Reporter-News shows a newly acquired MB/GPW hoisting a circus tent for the Gainesville Community Circus. The jeep was modified to drive stakes, pull stakes, and hoist canvas. Though the circus had been active since the 1930s, this May event was the first time the circus had travelled outside the Gainesville, Texas, area, according to the article at the bottom of the post. Three years later, in 1954, the circus was destroyed by fire.
Six months earlier, this November 11, 1950, article appeared in Billboard Magazine:
The Statesville Record and Landmark newspaper out of Statesville, North Carolina, described in the December 29, 1955, issue how up to eight jeeps are used to make sure rural customers received their newspapers, summer or winter, through rain, snow, or sleet.
A CJ-V35/U landed on the front page of the Leisuretime Magazine, published by the Gazette Telegraph out of Colorado Springs, Colorado, on August 07, 1965. It looks like the jeep has been modified with a taller radiator (and perhaps another engine), which apparently led to the lack of a hood.
For the story, the writer spent some time with the Mountain Airs Citizen Band Radio Club (not the catchiest of names). I didn’t realize that CB clubs were a ‘thing’, but there was even a magazine dedicated to that group of folks called S9. Here’s an example from 1966 (one in which the Mountain Airs’ name appears somewhere): https://worldradiohistory.com/Archive-CB-Radio/S9-Magazine/S9-1966-05.pdf.
Below is the Gazette Telegraph article:
This April 16, 1949, article in the Portland Press Herald highlighted critic complaints about several new sedan delivery wagons purchased for use as police vehicles. There was some concern that these new patrol vehicles would be unable to catch modern hot rods. In response, the police chief reminded his critics that this was an experiment.
You will note that there is a black blotch covering a small portion of the second part of the article, but I don’t think anything important is lost with it there.
UPDATE: I wonder if this electric jeep pictured in the November 05, 1943, issue of the Arizona Republic newspaper was the inspiration for the Jeep for Junior published in 1946?
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The post originally ran in 2014: These plans for an “Electric Jeep for Junior” come from a September 1946 Issue of Mechanix Illustrated Magazine.
Search ebay for original issues of the September 1946 issue of Mechanix Illustrated
This article from the May 24, 1965, issue of the Capital Journal, Salem, Oregon, follows the Salem Jeep Club’s trip with the Yakima Mountaineer’s Jeep Club (I’m not familiar with that club name) into the Cascade Mountains, specially the Ahtanum area west of Yakima.
This April 02, 1943, photo highlighted Sioux City’s North Junior School’s purchase of not one, but two jeeps as part of the “buy a jeep” bond campaign. They were the first school to buy one (and the first to buy two) jeeps. The Secretary of the United States Treasury presented the school with an award for its efforts.
April 02, 1943, Sioux City Journal
The arrival of the FJ-3s made the newspapers in a variety of states. This first article appeared in the February 02, 1961, issue of the Bridgeport Post out of Connecticut:
February 02, 1961, The Bridgeport Post, Bridgeport, CT.
February 02, 1961, The Bridgeport Post, Bridgeport, CT.
This next article appeared in the October 04, 1961, issue of the Owensboro, Kentucky, Messenger and Inquirer.
October 04, 1961, The Messenger and Inquirer, Owensboro, Kentucky,
The Mitchell, South Dakota, Post Office may have only purchased one FJ, but it still made the paper:
November 11, 1961, The Daily Republic, Mitchell, SD.
Here’s an add for the followup model, the FJ-3A .It appeared in The Lawton Constitution out of Oklahoma on January 07, 1962.
This is the more common version of the FJ-3A ad published across the country:
December 20, 1961, Arizona Daily Star, Tucson, AZ.
These two Oregon Dealers landed in the news, eleven years apart.
In the first photo from July 01, 1951, Medford Mail Tribune, The Medford Corporation purchases a fleet of eight jeeps for its logging operations from William Leever of the Leever Motor company.
July 01, 1951, Medford Mail Tribune
The second photo and caption are from nine years later and 15 miles north of Roseburg in Umpqua, Oregon. The February 26, 1962, issue of The News-Review published this Umpqua Tractor ad for tractors and jeeps. You’ll note the rare site of an FJ-3A on display along side an FC.
February 26, 1962, issue of The News-Review, Roseburg, Oregon.