The Jeep In Public Service, Part Eight

Today brings us up the year 1966. Kaiser was still in charge and still selling jeeps. This year the boys in advertising took a cue from the overall theme of the jeep line, that hearkens back to the past for a clue to the future and came up with these ads. These four ads resemble a line of advertising that Kaiser had used a decade earlier- three slender strips of photos that together were visually appealing and increased the amount of visual real estate as well as allowing three ‘separate’ titles that could be fit into just one 8 X 11” magazine ad.



It worked and still works today just as the jeep lineup still does. What the advertising execs saw that worked in the past still worked with just a quick dash of revamping and improvements. The same can also be said of the jeep!

Enjoy this last day of 2010 and look forward to three more installments in this series! You can click here to view all of the ads in their entirety in their album.

The Day After Christmas Bonus

As a small after Christmas bonus, I have two interesting pieces of Jeep history supplied to me by two contributors. The first is of a jeep ferrying F.D.R. and I think maybe Truman wearing a white fedora behind the driver while on a troop review. We’re unsure of the location but goes to show you that the jeep was good enough for not only troops but commanders in chief as well. They made great open air ‘cars’ for Generals and Presidents alike. I’m sure that we’ve all seen Eisenhower, McArthur, Patton and Roosevelt in a jeep many a time. Thanks to J.R. Welsh for this little gem!

The second submission is from Dan of Oldstuffpaper on Ebay who kindly sent me a scan of the actual discharge papers given to a certain MP of whom I had bought a few photos and written about here.

Dan wrote:

“Hi Brendan, The photos of the jeeps and Army MPs were taken at Fort Lewis in Washington state during WW2. I got a couple photo albums that were really tore up and missing some pages. But I was able to figure out they were from Ft. Lewis. One album has a picture of Ft. Lewis (or I should say what was left of a picture) on the cover and there is one photo of a bridge with a sign for Tacoma on it. I have the soldiers Army Separation paper if you would like a copy of it I will need your email address. Thanks, Dan. P.S. He was from Benton Harbor, Michigan and separated at Ft. Sheridan, Illinois.”

Thanks again, Dan! It’s stuff like this that I love to find and place with many of the anonymous men and women who have held a spot in their hearts for the jeep and what they could do with them.

You can click here or here to be taken to their individual albums and if you have any further information about the MP, George H. Nelson (including which one of the MPs he is in the photos), please contact me at thisoldjeepdotcom@gmail.com

The Jeep In Public Service, Part Seven!

Part Seven of the Jeep in public service brings us up to 1965. The still relatively new Gladiator and Wagoneer were still going strong, but a big change came along in the form of the first V-8 available in a Jeep. The ‘Vigilante’ 327 V-8 from American Motors (which in itself unintentionally was an portent of things to come just five years down the road...) became available as an option in both the Wagoneer and the Gladiator pickup. For less than $200 you could step up from the standard 230 Tornado with 140 horses to the Vigilante with a rated 250!

The GM Turbo-Hydramatic automatic transmission was also available for the first time in both models. The CJ was less changed, but as an early announcement of the 1966 model, a late ad states that big news was coming down the pike with a new V-6 as an option to the venerable F-Head 4.

You can click here to view all of the ads in the full album.

Merry Christmas With Terry And The Pirates And The Jeep!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays one and all from This-Old-Jeep.com! In honor of the Christmas holiday today we have a postcard sent by the Quaker Oats Company to Todd Channing of Goshen, Indiana informing him of their receipt of his entry into the “Sparkies Jingle Contest” in March of 1946. The card depicts both a kid’s and adult’s favorite comic strip of the time, “Terry and the Pirates.”

“Terry And The Pirates” was originally created by the famed cartoonist Milton Caniff in 1934 who he kept up writing and illustrating the strip until 1946 when it was handed over to another cartoonist who kept it going until 1973! “TATP” dealt with Terry, a boy who grew up through the comic strip and had a variety of colorful friends and adventures primarily in the Pacific theater of pre and post-WW2 and involving the Axis power of Japan and our ally, China.

The original comic strip spawned a generation of kid’s and adult’s imaginations and expanded into a television and movie serial as well as a radio program, from which the jingle contest the card mentions may have come from, as the Quaker Puffed Wheat and Puffed Rice "shot from guns" commercials were spawned during the radio program run.

You can click here to view the front and back of the card in its gallery.

An Update

Time to update your bookmarks for the Welcome page. Go to www.This-Old-Jeep.com and save the slightly tweaked new address & simplified page!

The Jeep In Public Service, Part Six

Continuing today with ads from the magazine Public Works from 1963 and 1964 we see a couple of continuing trends in Kaiser’s marketing of their jeep lineup. One of the biggest trend was pushing their two new vehicles, the Wagoneer and the Gladiator pickup truck.

The ads seen here focus on the unique styling and abilities of the Gladiator. It was the first pickup that could be easily equipped with an automatic transmission and compared to the clunky looking illustrations of the competition, it did seem sleek and modern. Nowadays the Gladiator and the Wagoneer’s distinct front grill have what is considered a classic look. Besides its utility and ease of use, the Wagoneer was also as a whole touted for its safety for the modern family in the well known “Stop Running Scared!” ad.

The jeep line was continuing to evolve on a yearly basis under Kaiser’s parentage, but one thing was certain, the jeep was still King of the Hill! Long Live The King! You can view the entire album here.

The Jeep In Public Service, Part Five

What’s in a name? Well, everything, as the ad states. And by 1963, Kaiser Industries that had bought out Willys ten years before had renamed itself Kaiser-Jeep Corporation. It had a motor company with a world wide foundation, customers and most importantly, a reputation that couldn’t be beat.

It had also newly introduced its Wagoneer and the “beautiful brute” Gladiator models and with a newly expanded stable that Kaiser needed to push and push it did. These ads once again came from Public Works magazine that marketed the various jeep models to public service and municipal interests as well as the families of the men who read this magazine.

You can view the full sized ads by clicking on any of the above thumbnails or click here.

The Jeep In Public Service, Part Four

As the year 1962 drew around, the jeep lineup still consisted of the venerable old pickup and panel wagons, the CJ line and the Forward Control models. The fleet was about to be improved and expanded with the late 1962 announcement of the all new ‘history makers,’ the Gladiator J-200 and 300 as well as the Wagoneer. Both the Gladiator known for its new and classic styling and the Wagoneer, the first of its kind in the new SUV market. Both also sported as standard the all new ‘Tornado’ 230 with its overhead camshaft, the first in a jeep with a much welcomed 140 horses. It was offered as an option in the older trucks and wagons which heretofore had only the F-head or flathead 6 as power plant choices.

Also in this group of ads are the announcement that the jeep fleet was chosen for inclusion into the new John Wayne movie, ‘Hatari.’ It was not the first time that a jeep had appeared in a movie, but it certainly has hung on as one of the best known.

You can check out the full group of jeep ads in public works magazines here.

The Jeep In Public Service, Part Three

Part Three of the jeep in public service brings us into the opening of the 1960’s. The jeep line was trucking along strongly in the 1960’s. It was still being used by many companies such as Bell, Westinghouse, Shell and United Airlines in a wide variety of fields.

Also in 1961, Kaiser Jeep introduced the FJ-3 line of Fleetvans. These perhaps most unusual looking of the jeep line vehicles were essentially a dispatcher DJ with a van body and a beefed up F-head Hurricane. It was unfortunately really only a success with the postal department where it was widely used but soon discontinued with the 1965 model. You can read and view many more photos here on the CJ3-B Page.

But the full jeep line was still as the ad copy states, the fleet that you wanted for hauling, winching, delivering, pushing, pulling and powering on and off road in any weather! You can click here to view the full album.

The Jeep In Public Service, Part Two

Continuing with part two brings us into 1956 and 1957. The watershed year of 1957 saw the release of the Forward Control models and Kaiser saw the perfect market for it in the public service sector. These two years worth of ads does showcase the FC models in some classic ads touting their “new style” and ability to perform at those “impossible” jobs.

This series of ads also makes the claim that the Jeep family of vehicles has driven more than ten billion miles in transport work service and that the estimate may be as high as fifty billion! The jeep has certainly earned it’s reputation through the hard won battle of everyday proof!

To see the full album of public service ads you can click here.

The Jeep In Public Service, Part One

At the end of the war that introduced the public to the jeep, Willys-Overland knew that the public wanted to own a jeep of their own. Before the war was over, plans had begun to design and construct a civilian model. However, they also knew that the jeep would have to be cleverly marketed beyond the returning GI who would long for his faithful companion.

The jeep was marketed more fully as a worker than as a leisure time buddy in the early days. Willys was successful at that pursuit and the jeep soon became the best friend and more importantly, co-worker of the farmer, the rancher, the mechanic and of the public service worker. Kaiser and later, AMC continued this marketing strategy.

I find myself lucky to have come across a small treasure trove of ads from two magazines that covered articles written for the public service sector, “The American City” and “Public Works.” I’ll begin with the earliest ads today from 1955 and work my way up to 1975 over the course of the month of December.

You can click here to view the album of all the full sized ads.