The This-Old-Jeep.com 2013 Calendar- June

June 6, the 69th anniversary of the invasion of Normandy that set in motion acts of great and tremendous importance is still a few days away, but I wanted to post this today. The This-Old-Jeep.com June 2013 page was chosen as it illustrates a common fact of that time, the role of the jeep against the devastation of the war. Of course, for all that the jeep was a tool of war, so too was it a too, of the rebuilding of the post-war world as well. And this page should remind everyone of the sacrifices in europe that took place June 6, 1944.

I was planning to present more pages from the Industrial Equipment binder today, but decided to keep it short today in anticipation of having Dave Eilers from eWillys.com at my house for lunch. He and his wife are in the midst of a cross country journey that culminates with a visit to the Bantam Jeep Festival in Butler, PA in a few short weeks.

Check out the 2013 calendar that is still available here with all new never before seen photos of the unstoppable jeep! Come back next week when I hope to have more of the Industrial Equipment binder!

Willys-Overland Industrial Equipment Book, Part Four- Bodies And Enclosures

Let’s jump right into the update today because its a big section. Back in February while writing the evolution of the hardtop I mentioned that I had checked something that I’ve had for a long time but hadn’t looked at for awhile. This Industrial Equipment binder was it. Back in 1952 just before Kaiser Industries bought out what remained of Willys-Overland and continued the production of the jeep, this three-ring binder contained a wealth of info on what was available to the dealer as optional equipment for his customer. Previously we’ve covered the farm implements, accessories (and surprising accessories they were, back up lights, windshield washers, a second brake light!), the Warn hub set up and today we have the Body and Enclosure section. The Body and Enclosures section contains everything from the expected stuff like info on the big hardtop and half top manufacturer of the day, Koenig of Houston, Texas to the unexpected stuff like their body extensions that are pretty rarely seen nowadays.

And it wasn’t all for the CJs. There was equipment for the pickup trucks from aluminum body enclosures making it into a sort of cargo truck and the Dump-O-Matic which was also available converting the truck into a dumper for only about $350! But then again that same $350 had the same buying power as about $3,000 today! Its great to see that stuff like this and all of the hand typed notes are still there.

Koenig, of course, wasn’t the only hard top manufacturer out there, there was also Beck. I was going to check on what Derek Redmond of the CJ3B Page had to say about Becks as I hadn’t heard much about them before finding these pages, but his site seems to be down today.

And if you didn’t want a hard top there was still a soft top available as optional equipment, though for the princely price of about $95 in 1952 dollars that amounts to $833 today (?!) according to the consumer price index, it seems like a hard top may have been a better bargain!

Lastly, there was the still mysterious Worman company who had the aluminum pickup enclosure, the aforementioned Jee-Cab as well as the Parkway conversion as offerings. I’ll be honest when I say that I don’t know if I fully understand the Parkway conversion. I believe that it was just the conversion of the sedan wagon from a rear drop down tailgate and lifting hatch to two swing away doors making it easier for deliverymen. The page states that it “adds” four large windows, but didn’t the station wagon already come with four rear windows? Though there was a big price difference between the station wagon with four windows and the sedan delivery wagon with no windows depending upon the year. So the price of just $65 ($570 today) possibly was a bargain versus the $100 to $400 ($877 to $3500 today!) of a station wagon plus you got the swing aways. Again not much seems to be known about Worman of Toledo, Ohio as a whole. Anyone have an idea where the name of ‘Parkway’ came from?

In doing some poking around the web for info on the Beck’s hardtop, I stumbled across this R/C website and this guy’s absolutely incredible 1970 CJ-5 with hardtop R/C! This is simply amazing. Check out the thread here and watch this and more of his videos on YouTube. He’s also built an FC-170!

Thanks for your patience in waiting for the update today. Lots going on around the house yesterday and I just didn’t have the time or energy to finish it to my satisfaction. Come back next week for more of the Industrial Equipment binder! And have a good Memorial Day. Please take the time to remember all those vets who have fallen in the line of duty and thank a living vet too! Check out this CBS story from their Sunday Morning show about Staff Sergeant Blakey of the 82nd Airborne who was a part of the D-Day invasion. His story is worth hearing!

Willys-Overland Industrial Equipment Book, Part Three- Accessories

Thanks for your patience last week and today I want to get back into the 1952 Willys-Overland Industrial Equipment dealer’s book. There are alot of fascinating things in this binder, but some of the most interesting things are the first things listed, the accessories. Its hard to believe that in this day of the super high tech automobile that at one time vehicles were pretty simple and basic tools as the jeep was. And especially surprising that in this day of saving us from ourselves and safety everywhere traction control and backup cameras and airbags that such things as a second brake light, reflectors, back up lights and wiper washers were optional dealer installed accessories for the jeep! The other thing that I have never before seen were the center third seat and bench seat covers for the jeep’s wheel wells. I wonder how many were sold because I’ve never seen a surviving specimen on a modern day barn find. Click here to view the entire accessory section and the rest of the binder!

Next week, I’ll continue with the Industrial Equipment binder, but in the meanwhile why don’t you check out the This-Old-Jeep.com forum? Have a question or want to show off your project or get some ideas for your next restoration? This is the perfect place for it. Check us out here!

The This-Old-Jeep.com 2013 Calendar- May

This week brings us to May and the month of Memorial Day, a time of remembering and commemorating the sacrifices of the fallen. I’m not sure where or when this photo was taken, but it looks to have been during a parade. It could well have been a Memorial Day parade with the veterans driving the jeep past crowds in small town America with a Five and Dime in the background. Except that the veterans here are hardly the generation that you’d expect in a jeep! These guys are flying the South’s Stars and Bars in their Confederate grey! Imagine if the South had had jeeps at their disposal during the Civil War. Well, perhaps that’s an alternate past for the writers like Harry Turtledove to imagine!

Click on the thumbnail above to view the page full sized and you can also find a link to the 2013 calendar which is still available as well as a ton of other great vintage jeep products for everyone at the This-Old-Jeep.com online store!

Next week there will not be an update as I’ll be out of town visiting sick family, but when I get back I hope to get back to the Willys-Overland Industrial Equipment book as well as quite literally a ton of more vintage jeep items that will be added right here. In the meanwhile visit our online forum where you can read about and view projects and talk with fellow jeepers about anything about our greatest loves, the jeep!

Willys-Overland Industrial Equipment Book, Part Two, Warn Hubs

This week brings us the next part of the Willys Industrial Equipment Book, the Warn Hub Caps. Warn Industries was one of those early pioneering companies that saw the incredible potential of the post-war jeep.  Warn was a relatively small company that has grown into a name that is synonymous with the 4X4 industry today for their hubs, bumpers and especially, their winches. Arthur and Sadie Warn began by running a Willys dealership in Washington State in the 1930’s. Their hard work and vision formed Warn Industries by 1948 with a dream that the post-war jeep could become a bit more road worthy by the addition of the then just $20 Warn hub! Nowadays an early set of Warn hubs are prized and hard to come by.

But back in the early days it took alot of hard work and Sadie’s vision that advertising and selling the hubs in the pages of Popular Mechanics would pay off. And pay off it did. The mail order business took off and by 1954 the Warn hub was offered as optional factory equipment from auto manufacturers. You an read more about Warn Industries’ history here at their site and click here to view the whole brochure including a supplemental ad that touts the benefits of dealers stocking the famous Warn hubs that appear in the pages of Popular Mechanics, Popular Science, Mechanix Illustrated and Science and Mechanics.

And this photo appears on the Warn history section of their site. I’m assuming that its their dealership, but are those really neat extended body conversions on CJ2-As? Hmmm... I’d love to see more of them! 

I posted this on our Facebook page last night, but I’d like to remind everyone that we have an all-jeep forum. We're friendly, helpful, interesting and unfortunately, a bit small now right now. We recently had an involuntary move to new server/ hosting company and I feel like we've lost many of our old posters. If you're one of them, why don't you come back? You need to create a new username and password for the new host, Yuku and you'll be back in the action again! If you're new to our forum, check us out! We have lots of projects, photos and how-tos and friendly jeep guys and gals but we could still use your help. Check us out here... http://thisoldjeep.fr.yuku.com/

Come back next week for more history from the legendary unstoppable jeep and until then, I hope to see you on our forum!

Willys-Overland Industrial Equipment Book, Part One- Farm Implements

This is finally one of my projects that I’ve had in mind that I’ve wanted to include here on the site for a long time now. I’ve seen a few of these Industrial Equipment Books for sale in the recent past, but they don’t come down the pike very often and when they do they go for big bucks. I was lucky enough to win this three ring binder filled with Willys-Overland dealer information. It was a sales item that allowed the dealer to easily show off the plethora of equipment that was available for purchase straight from the dealership at the time of purchase. It also convincingly showed off the multiple uses that the jeep could be put through. 

This binder dates from roughly May 1952 (to judge by the enclosed letter of introduction from the head of Farm Sales for Willys...), less than one year from the demise of W-O and the buyout by Kaiser. It was of course, an interesting time for the world at large and America in particular. Farming was one of those many occupations that was being changed dramatically in part by advances in science as well the overall increase in the American economy. Prior to the 1940’s, “only one-third of farms had electricity to run refrigerators or washing machines in the house or lights and milking machines in the barn. Only 25 percent of farms had telephones.” (http://www.livinghistoryfarm.org/farminginthe40s/life_01.html)

But even before the war farming was undergoing remarkable changes. Farmers had to become more and more productive while becoming fewer in numbers. They were able to produce more in less time due to changes in crop varieties, irrigation techniques and pesticides, but one of the biggest of all was the increasingly different and increased uses of machinery. Tractors were getting more powerful and had more horsepower. And they had to as the workforce was rapidly changing. Less kids stayed down on the farm. Cities and factories were where people gravitated towards especially later on driven by the huge post-war boom. Tractors became a necessity and horses as a source of ‘horsepower’ were out. Check out this link for an interesting comparative series of videos between a horse drawn plow and tractors from 1929 to 1997. From a study on American agriculture comes this interesting figure, "Productivity growth was slow before the 1930s... The estimated rate of productivity growth is 0.4 percent in [the period] 1910-1939 per year and 2.0 percent in 1940-1996." (Bruce L. Gardner, “American Agriculture in the Twentieth Century,” (Harvard University Press, 2002) In the short period of a decade productivity had risen five times!

The jeep was naturally a part of this revolution as it had been in the war and so too did Willys-Overland foresee it within the peacetime economy. Its potential, unfortunately was not realized on the farm, though the jeep did see it’s uses blossom elsewhere.

You can read the rest of the article here.

Wrecks And Stucks And The This-Old-Jeep.com April 2013 Calendar Page

Welcome back and welcome to April everyone. Today we have the This-Old-Jeep.com 2013 calendar page for April. Since its April and the season for mud as well as April Fool’s Day jokes, I thought that this photo would work out particularly well. Someone had entitled it “A jerk by a jeep!” on the front of the photo and noted on the back that “There is one thing we have plenty of over here and that’s mud!” I thought it hilarious and a good example of two buddies having a good time in the service (always with the help of the jeep!), possibly somewhere in Europe. The grin on the guy’s face tells you that his cool rain slicker may have saved him from the rain, but not the mud!

I’m also including various photos found online in the Website Finds section of all sorts of wrecks and stucks that people have gotten the jeep into. While its a mighty capable vehicle, there were even limits to what the jeep could get through in one piece.

Thanks for being patient when I wasn’t able to post last week. I’ve been dealing with alot of health issues with my mom, who as much as I wish it weren’t so, just isn’t getting any younger. I also had family and friends visiting for my son’s seventh birthday party, so it was a busy time! I’m working on various ideas for much longer articles as well a long scanning project that I intend on beginning this weekend... so stay tuned, I have some great things to share soon! Come back next week for more and I hope that you’re getting as ready for spring as I am!