A gentleman named Vivek contacted me last night.  He ran across ewillys while searching for some jeep parts.  He’s from India and owns a CJ-3B that he restored.  He’s currently working in California for a few months, before heading back to India, so he’s looking to locate a few parts he can take back with him (there’s enough jeeping in India that maybe I ought to head there and work for a few months — can I get a job with my MBA Vivek?).  I’ll be highlighting him and his efforts in a post I’ll write in the next few days.

For now, I want to thank Vivek for opening up the interesting world of jeeping in India to me.  After a few email exchanges, he pointed me to a gentleman named Mr. Uday Bhan Singh.  Mr. Uday, it turns out, owns 45 flatfenders that he has collected over the span of 40 years.  This month, autocarindia did an article on him, which has been copied and posted to the Jeep Thrills website, which is also Vivek’s jeep club.

Here are links to the article pages which is worth reading (once open, click on the page to zoom into it):

Page 1, Page 2, Page 3, Page 4

To say Mr. Uday is passionate about jeeps likely understates things; The article’s description of him as a Jeep Junkie is likely more accurate.  One look at the images of his “great arc” jeep and you’ll see he not only knows jeeps, but uses and jeeps with them.  Last year in his MB he navigated the length of the great arc, the 78th meridian that bisects India.  The meridian itself stretches about 583 miles as the crow flies, however the actual driving mileage was just under 1200 miles.

To complete this drive, Mr. Uday went prepared.  This jeep carries a few extra parts, such as 2 sets of springs mounted to the underside and a special contraption made of poles for helping winch out of difficult places that are strapped to the driver’s side.  I highly recommend reviewing the pictures.  Even the paint job is nicely unique (reminds me a bit of the follow-me jeep paint jobs).