Russ Lawton has joined our expedition. He’s driving his 1951 Jeepster. When not jeeping, he operates a machine shop. Russ will be joined by Tom Ogle, also from Paris. Tom is a Retired mail carrier, now full time cattle rancher and admitted Willys Jeep addict, too. His latest creation is a John Wayne movie themed from Hatari.
THE JEEPSTER:
Though Bob’s pride and joy is (after his wife and cats) his CJ-3B, lately he’s been focusing on a different jeep, the restoration of a Jeepster.
The Jeepster was first introduced in 1948 by Willys Overland. It was their first post-war sports model. Though it was built on a jeep chassis, it was actually a 2WD vehicle. Hoping to entice those interested in a more luxurious jeep, the Jeepster included numerous deluxe features and interior fittings in addition to a high level of standard equipment that cost extra on other automobiles. These included, among many others, whitewall tires, hubcaps with bright trim rings, sun visors, deluxe steering wheel, wind wings, locking glovebox, cigar lighter, as well a continental tire with a fabric cover.
Unfortunately for Willys Overland, the model proved unpopular. Less than 20,000 units were produced and the model was ended in 1950. In the 1960s, Jeep revived the Jeepster under the name Jeepster Commando. But, they didn’t prove all that popular either.
NOTE: Attending in spirit. Bob Christy was riding with Scott when Scott’s wagon’s engine blew.
Bob Christy will be riding with Scott Gilbert, but is known in throughout the jeep community for his CJ-3B.
Bob Christy has had a lifelong love of jeeps since his dad took him to a jeep race in Lisbon, Ohio when he was 8. He’s been hooked ever since. He’ll be riding with Scott Gilbert on the journey to Alaska.
He currently has six jeeps including a fully restored 1953 cj3b (pictured above), and in progress 1949 jeepster and several parts vehicles.
Bob has been a photographer for Kent state university for the past 16 years and helps to run several jeep shows including the spring Willys reunion which brings jeep owners from all over the world together. Bob lives in a log cabin in Green, Ohio with his wife, several cats and all these jeeps.
HISTORY OF THE JEEP NAME:
There are numerous false histories regarding how the jeep got its name. One of the more well-known incorrect stories claims the jeep was named after the initials GP or general purpose. While Ford introduced a Ford GP as a pilot vehicle in late 1940, by that time soldiers testing the Bantam vehicle had already begun calling the jeep by that name. According to this 1944 article, court-case testimony suggested that drivers began calling the vehicles “jeeps” by November of 1940:
But, jeep wasn’t the only named used to describe the vehicles. Even by April of 1942, Army editors still couldn’t decide what to call it. Some editors called them “Bantam cars”, some “Peeps”, some “Jeeps”, some “Blitz Buggies”, among other names.
Eventually, a decision was made. In May of 1942, newspapers announced the armored division officially named the quarter-ton command/reconnaissance car the ‘Peep’, while the half-ton armored car was called the ‘Jeep’. The Milwaukee Journal published two photos to help readers distinguish between the two.
This confusion, in part, explains why there is confusion surrounding the name.
A second reason for confusion had to do with a lawsuit over the trademark by Ford and Willys Overland. Willys Overland wanted to trademark the term Jeep, but Ford objected, arguing it had contributed to the look of the jeep, especially their invention of the nine slot stamped grille, one of the iconic visual aspects of the vehicle.
By mid-1945, WWII was nearly concluded. Willys Overland, ready to introduce the jeep, was forced to stamp “Willys” into the hood and windshield of the ready-to-be-released CJ-2A, the first civilian jeep. This led to some jeeps being called jeeps, a marketing device Willys continued to use, while other folks called them “Willys” due to the stamped hood.
Ford and Willys fought over the Jeep name for years, until Willys Overland was finally awarded the name in 1950.
Fifty-two year old David Eilers will be driving Patterson, his 1956 Two-Wheel Drive DJ-3A Convertible, to Alaska. Having lived most of its life on an Apricot Farm in Central California, David and his wife Ann purchased Patterson in May of 2017.
It’s seems fitting that David marks his 50th state with a jeep, because he grew up around them. He was less than a year old in 1966 when he made his first trip over the Naches Pass in Washington State, riding on his mother’s lap. In 1969, his parents were charter members of the Wandering Willys Jeep Club. Many years of jeeping and club events followed.
One of David’s early jeep trips.David and his father Karl camping at Milk Lake in Washington State.
In the early 1980s, when David turned sixteen, he took over the family’s 1962 CJ-5 as his primary vehicle.
At age 19, he built a custom flat fender jeep designed for jeeping and racing that was also streetable. He kept that jeep until 1990 when college and a move to Wisconsin made it impractical.
The “Great Escape” parked above Roche Harbor on San Juan Island, where David worked for three summers.
It would take another seventeen years before David bought another jeep project. There were several reasons behind his purchase of a jeep in early 2007, a story he explains in his book Finding Virginia. As David scoured Craigslists in late 2007 for parts for his newest project, he realized that finding vintage jeep parts was more difficult than he’d expected. That led to the formation of eWillys.com at the start of 2008, a site to teach people about vintage jeeps, their history, and list jeeps and parts for sale.
Lost Biscuit, a fiberglass CJ-3A.
Since its inception, eWillys has grown to a total of 40,000 posts—making it a unique jeep archive—with a world-wide readership. As a result of its popularity, David and his wife Ann have toured the United States in their 2012 Grand Cherokee (named Henry), meeting readers, exploring odd places, and reporting on their journeys (example trips: Southwest Tour, Texas Tour, East Coast Tour) . They’ve explored rough, rocky trails in southern Utah, driven through traffic in New York City, fought “pirates” in a National Park, and gone back to the age of dinosaurs at Borrego Springs.
The 2014 photo below was taken in Borrego Springs, California, during their Southwest Tour trip in 2014. The t-rex’s are ready to take a bit of Henry, our 2012 Jeep Grand Cherokee.
Apart from eWillys, David has also authored three books in the past five years. He’s got several more books planned.
HISTORY OF DJ-3As:
The little known two-wheel drive DJ-3A was launched in 1956 by Willys Motors as an inexpensive vehicle for consumers and businesses. There were four models and three different body types produced initially. The Convertible model David & Ann own, distinguished by the lack of tailgate and the angular soft top, was considered the “lowest priced sports car in the world” according to the company’s advertising at the time.
An excerpt from an early DJ-3A brochure. Note the four different models. The Convertible (top right) was notable for its unusual soft top and lack of tailgate.
Consumers didn’t find the DJ-3A all that attractive, but businesses and governments valued its low operating costs and bought them in fleets. For example, pharmacies purchased them to deliver drugs, while the post offices used them to deliver mail.
Five DJ-3As shown from a 1959 issue of Willys News.
In 1958, Las Brisas, a new high-end resort in Acapulco, Mexico, bought some DJ-3As and painted them pink and white. Willys Motors realized the DJs might make popular, inexpensive rental vehicles, so they introduced brightly colored versions of the DJ-3A called Surreys and Galas intended as resort rentals.
What’s the difference between a Surrey and Gala? There is some debate about the issue, since much of the history has been lost. However, one working theory is that Galas were only sold through the Willys-Overland Export division, while Willys Motors sold the Surreys domestically.
The Willys Export Company offered DJ-3A Galas in three different colors. Surreys were also offered in three different colors, but the color schemes differed slightly.
DJ-3As were produced through 1965, but precise production information has been lost. It’s estimated that 12,000 DJ-3As may have been produced over the models’ ten year run.
Mary Tilford will be driving his modified 1946 CJ-2A to Alaska with his friend, Don Brown.
Forty-year-old Marty Tilford’s wife Suzanna had no idea what was in store for her when she began dating her future husband. Marty had grown up a member of the Vancouver 4 Wheelers, one of the Pacific Northwest’s oldest four wheel drive clubs. To him, spending weekends exploring the Cascade Mountains, racing jeeps with fellow enthusiasts, and volunteering to make his surrounding community a better place, such as cleaning up ocean beaches every Fall, was just second nature. But, Suzanna’s first reaction to his jeep hobby was disbelief, “There’s a whole community built around jeeps?”
Fast forward twelve years and Suzanna’s disbelief has turned to an embrace of the jeeping community Marty loves. They’ve instilled this same love (or is madness?) in their twin children, a pair of young troopers who can ride for hours at a time without complaint in specially built seats. The whole family participates and enjoys the Pacific Northwest Four Wheel Drive Association, of which the Vancouver 4 Wheelers are members, and the broader Washington Off Highway Vehicle Alliance, which works to protect and enhance safe and responsible off highway vehicle recreation.
Marty’s 1946 CJ-2A modificed jeep balances the classic look of the original jeep with the practical needs of street, trail, and race.
Marty, a fabricator, laser and plasma burn machine operator, sees the Alaska venture as a unique opportunity to partake in a once-in-a-lifetime jeeping event. He’ll be driving his specially built 1946 CJ-2A, a highly modified jeep that began as a bare frame and an old race jeep body. Desiring a family friendly vehicle that would take his family to ice cream, survive jeeping on tight rocky trails, and race on weekends, he spent two years constructing it. He stretched the jeep eight inches, while keeping the basic shape of the standard 4×4, added a roll cage (to protect his precious cargo), and updated the drivetrain and brakes to navigate the highways around Portland.
Marty’s roll cage meets PNW4WDA racing requirements and survive an unexpected roll down the steep mountains of the PNW area.
To facilitate weekends in the mountains, Marty added an ARB refrigerator to keep drinks cold, installed a winch to get him out of tough spots, and added an onboard compressor to pump up the tires after jeeping so he could drive it home after a long trip. A 327 Chevorlet engine powers everything, while a TH350 automatic transmission makes driving easier. Custom springs give the jeep a soft, firm ride. He even redrilled the bolt pattern on his transmission to transfer case adapter and rotated it counter clockwise a few degrees to improve his clearance. It’s a great performing jeep that will take him anywhere in Washington. Now, it will take him to Alaska for the first time.
Marty racing at a PNW4WDA event.
A Brief History of Four Wheel Drive Clubs & Associations:
When Willys-Overland released the world’s first civilian jeep, the CJ-2A in July of 1945, the company marketed it as a farm, ranch, utility, and get-a-person-to-a-remote-spot vehicle (for fishing or hunting). It was the purposeful, yet flexible nature of the vehicle that Willys hoped would drive sales. Perhaps it was management’s Midwest roots (farming, ranching and outdoors) that led to that sales strategy, but for whatever reasons, the jeep wasn’t positioned as a vehicle designed for recreation—as in the act of driving-the-vehicle-itself as a form of fun.
One demographic that embraced the fun and explorative nature of the CJ was west coasters from Washington to California. In 1946 there were still vast remote areas of the West never explored by vehicles and a wide range of climates and topography—ocean beaches, sands, deserts, hills, mountains, and forests ranging from sea level to 14,000 feet—that were perfect for exploring with the new civilian jeep. But, navigating these far-away areas solo could prove fool hardy, so groups of friends, then clubs of jeepers soon formed.
One of the first organized jeep clubs was, according to Four Wheeler Magazine, Sareea Al Jamel (Fast Camel), which formed in 1946. The next known club formed more than a thousand miles north, in tiny Yakima, Washington. In January of 1947 a group of jeep owners met and incorporated the world’s first jeep club, the Yakima Ridge Runners.
Early photo of the Yakima Ridger runners meeting in front of a Wally Klingele sign in downtown Yakima. Wally was one of the founding members.
These and other early clubs led to two forms of recreation that Willys Overland did not seem to anticipate, jeeping and racing. California clubs like Sareea Al Jamel and the Hemet Jeep (formed in 1948 as the Hemet Cavalcade) explored the mountains, deserts, and beaches of southern California in groups. Meanwhile, the Yakima Ridge Runners were exploring their local Cascade Mountain Range, using a long abandoned wagon trail called the Naches.
For some of the Ridge Runner members, exploring the foothills of the Cascades wasn’t enough. Their competitive spirit, and likely some arguments over who had the faster jeep, led to head-to-head racing at a Native American site close to Yakima called the Jeep Bowl. It’s here the earliest documented jeep racing began in the United States. The Ridgerunner club’s activities eventually drew the attention of Life Magazine, which did an article on club members, and Universal News, which published two news reels of their antics.
In 1953, the town of Georgetown, hoping to stimulate tourism, hosted a jeep trek over an old stagecoach route called the Rubicon Trail. This marked the beginning of the famous Jeepers Jamboree. Events like this encouraged more people to purchase jeeps, which led to more interest in jeeping and racing. Slowly, the number of clubs grew, both along the west coast and throughout the country.
The formation of clubs and associations, and as part of both the recreative use of the jeep and the growing car culture, there were a flurry of jeep-related products that flourished. In the East and Midwest this came in the form of utilitarian items like snow plows, hardtops, farm equipment, and utility equipment (towing, generators, fire jeeps). A little later, in the 1950s and 1960s, start-ups began t produce recreative and performance products. These included jeeping enhancements (free wheeling hubs, winches, and carriers), drivetrain improvements for faster speeds (overdrives), and products for racing (fiberglass bodies, roll bars, racing seats, drivetrain modifications). Based on the types of older jeeps that have sold over the last ten years, these type of improvements proved more popular in the west than the east.
It was not uncommon in the Pacific Northwest for jeep owners in the 1960s and 1970s to use their jeeps for race, street, and trail. This led to safety modifications (brakes, roll cages, full harnesses), the installation of heavier duty parts (to survive racing and hard jeeping), practical driving improvements (better brakes lights and the swap to modern steering columns for turn signals), and a need for more power, in the form of V6 and V8s installations.
Today there are still jeep clubs all around the US (and around the world), though they are more often known as 4×4 clubs, due to their willingness to accept non-jeeps among their ranks. Club members volunteer annually to clean beaches, maintain trails, and help their communities. These days, their greatest challenge is less about surviving remote areas and more about keeping access to those areas open. With more people entering forests on foot, bike, motorcycle, atv, jeep, and truck, the danger to wild terrain isn’t the danger unto the people; it is the danger of permanently damaging the wilds they love so much. Tread lightly is now their common goal.
Rob Stafford is from Spanaway, WA and basically grew up in the back seat of the family’s 1963 CJ3B which currently lives in his garage in pieces and parts. In 1978 he purchased his first vehicle at the age of 15, a 1948 CJ2A. He has owned this vehicle ever since and will be driving it on this adventure with his friend Ron (on the way up) and his wife Diane (on the return journey).
The flatty is powered by a 1967 225 Buick odd-fire V6 and Ford top loader 3 speed, large shaft 18 transfer case, Warn overdrive, 30 front end and Herm the Overdrive Guy full floater axle kit fitted 44 rear end. Many of the non-stock modifications were created and added in the early 80’s in Rob’s high school shop classes.
Rob has spent most of his life in and around the 4 wheel drive community. He is a long time member of the Pacific Northwest 4 Wheel Drive Association and has served on the board of directors for the association as both the competition chairman and safety education director. Rob and his wife Diana belong to 3 Jeep clubs, the Cascade 4x4s of Tacoma, Countyline Offroaders, and Overbored Racing.
Although the CJ2A is his first love, he does have a mistress that offers a few more creature comforts. Most of the time nowadays he usually explores the trails around the beautiful Pacific Northwest in his 1998 TJ powered by a healthy all aluminum LS1, 700R4 transmission, highly modified 231 transfer case, custom built 44 front end, and disc brake 8.8 rear end, both fitted with 4:88s and ARB’s, and a cushy Rubicon Express Long Arm suspension.
When the need for speed hits, Rob and his wife Diana, take their 1946 custom built race Jeep to the track for a shot of adrenaline. It runs a 560 horsepower 327 and Ford top loader 4 speed, all wrapped in a fiberglass shell.
He has several other Willys projects scattered around in various states of restoration and modification. To fund his hobbies, Rob has spent the past 35 years working as an automotive repair technician and specializes in high end European cars.
A SHORT HISTORY OF JEEP RACING:
Unlike the history of jeep clubs, the history of amateur and semi-professional jeep racing is harder to trace. One of the earliest racing events was organized in Yakima, Washington, during the 1950s.
Racing spread quickly. Marque events were held in the later 1950s with the Jeep-O-Rama in Denver, Colorado, and the Jeep Derby in Truth Or Consequences, New Mexico. In the latter event, specially built passenger bars were used by (crazy) passengers to balance the jeep during difficult turns as demonstrated below:
Through the 1960s and into the 1970s, four wheel drive racing became very popular and spanned the nation. Racing circuits flourished on the Eastern Seaboard, in the Midwest, in the Mountain West, into Canada, and all along the West Coast. Race organizers adapted events to their terrain, such as swamp racing in the southeast and desert racing in the west.
Some racing was head on head, like drag, swamp, or wheel to wheel events, but others were timed events, like short track cross country racing and hill climbs. Still, other types of “racing” were more family oriented, such as potato races, backward courses, divorce courses (drivers drive blindfolded while the spouse directed them slowly through a course) and many other creative and fun ideas.
Racers would drive a course, stopping at intermittent boxes full of potatoes. The passenger would poke a potato, secure, then the race would advance to the next box.
For complex social and economic reasons, amateur four wheel drive racing declined nationwide during the 1980s and into the 1990s. These days, the Pacific Northwest 4 Wheel Drive Association still holds events, but the massive crowds of old have given way to smaller events. Still, a great amount of fun is had. Below is a video filmed during 2016:
