Who remembers the original Jeep?















































































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My cousin owns this one.




Link to original video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOxhNgX49Ck

They just tore down the old factory a few years ago. Bet it held some stories.

Great pics! Thanks for sharing!

Link to original video: https://youtu.be/dBtYXFXa5Ig

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Great pics!
My dad had one. Post WWII 1950's era. It was cool.

Willys was not the original jeep! Think Butler PA then go from there.

quote:

Originally posted by lowflash:
Willys was not the original jeep! Think Butler PA then go from there.

+1 FTW!!! Bantam motors. Bantam was judged to be unable to meet the demand of their newly designed automobile, so the .gov gave most of the contract to other firms. Bantam made some Bantam Jeeps, and I believe all of the pull behind trailers.

http://www.butlerhistory.com/bantam.htm

I remember surplus (used) WWII Jeeps being advertised in all the magazines and comic books of the 1950's.

A friend and I plotted for weeks to come up with enough money to buy two of them and assemble them in our garages, but our parents wouldn't let us do it. Something about being about 11 or 12 years old was their excuse.

For anybody who has one, last I checked Bestop still sold replacement tops and frames for them.

Excellent photos, thanks for posting.

Thanks for posting those pictures. Brings back memories of my Scout training after Basic. We trained using Willys Jeeps (M38A1) with an M60 machine gun mounted.

I wonder if one could be assembled from spare parts?

India agrees.

https://www.mahindraautomotivena.com/roxor

Dad still has a 1945 CJ-2A he got from my grandfather. It sits in his garage right behind my grandfather's 1929 Ford Model A.

My Dad was to be part of the main island invasion force, he had been sent after boot camp for some extra "special" training. He never did tell us what that was for. He said they had been told to expect a 75% causality rate... the FIRST day. Then they dropped the bombs. Talk about a close call... instead, he spent his time in Occupied Japan. He came back with a life long hatred for the Japanese, but he came to love Jeeps.

Back home after the war he had two Jeeps covering 10 years or more before he bought his first car, and that's with a family of 4 kids to haul around!

He was a carpenter / contractor in training and also helped his Dad dairy farm. He on occasion pulled a disc with the Jeep and also would bush-hog via the rear PTO shaft.

I can remember riding to Church in the back of one... after my mom shined up my shoes up with a leftover biscuit from breakfast!

Thanks for reviving the fond memories Tooky!

quote:

Originally posted by chellim1:
Great pics!
My dad had one. Post WWII 1950's era. It was cool.

My grandfather did too. As a kid, I loved playing in it. All those gear levers were amazing to me.

I remember them well!
A good friend of mine had 3 back in the early to mid '80's. He used them for snow plowing. I learned how to drive stick shift on them (and a '61 Corvette). I made some great $ in high school working for him.

Damn things were unstoppable, however, they were rusted pretty bad. Not that my friend encouraged us, but there were a few 1/2 inch wrenches in the tool kit so if we hit a street sign, we would be able to use them for floor pans.

Fast forward a few years, I'm in the Marines in Japan. We had a few M-151's at the motor pool that were later retrofitted into Fast Attack Vehicles... It was fun flying around in those too.

And it wasn't just the Americans and Brits who loved the Jeep in WW2... 44,000 Jeeps were also sent as aid to the Soviet Union during the war.



The Germans used them as well, when they could get their hands on them.

I have one, except mine's a Ford GPW.

Thanks for posting this,I really enjoyed this thread.