UPDATE: Paul Barry shared some photos of the truck shown below. The hamilton toy wrecker is cute.
Paul wrote, I kept asking about the tow truck. I guess the owners got tired of me asking and said if I wanted the tow truck I had to buy all the Willys stuff left over from the dealership. Shucks!
The story behind the truck is it was ordered from Toledo with a Canfield wrecker and was delivered in 1955 along with a new CJ-5. The truck arrived in red primer, as it was to be painted the yellow and blue AAA colors, the business was a AAA station since 1927. The pair of jeeps arrived very late at night and as was the custom the transport just dropped them off in front of the store. When morning came, only the CJ-5 was there, no tow truck to be found. I suppose phone calls were made and the truck was supposed to be right in front. Someone came into the station later that morning and said they saw a tow truck stuck in the riverbed back at the crossroads. So they took the old wrecker and recovered the new one In the Eel River (ed note Ferndale is just south of the Eel River). The local hooligans stole the truck and since it was delivered with only a couple gallons of fuel, ran out of gas while “wheeling” it.
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A Ferndale Willys dealer originally used this truck wrecker to tow disabled vehicles. He also used it as a customer demonstration vehicle.
