(first posted 12/9/2011)
Twittered-out, over-Tumblered, hyper-texted and on-line OD’d? Get an old truck – the older the better – and go haul something with it. Just make sure you don’t bring your Android along. The more our modern lives spend punching keys and swiping screens, the more powerful the need for an antidote, one made of old, cold steel. I’m kinda stuck with mine, but if I were looking, or someone wanted a recommendation, this one would be sky-high on the list.
Isn’t this why we’re here? To remind ourselves what an automobile really is in its most elemental form: frame, wheels, brakes, a burbly old motor, some levers and gears to crunch and munch, and to experience each of them simultaneously and yet (sort of) in harmony. Ok, you want a floating pod for the commute, one that has to talk back electronically, because otherwise it hardly creates any sensations. But come Saturday, what you want is this: a Willys Jeep truck.
It’s about as elemental as it gets. Yet it’s perfectly suited for the job at hand; you’ll be looking for excuses to drive it. ” I think I’m gonna haul that old rotted door to the dump”. “What about….
The six volt starter grinds the little four cylinder to life, drowning out the competing demands of domestic life. It doesn’t really matter if your Jeep truck has the 60 hp “Go-Devil” flat head or the 75 hp “Hurricane” F-head. It’s going to be slower than hell either way, which is pretty much the point. If someone stuck a Buick V6 under the hood, you’re just going to get back home that much quicker.
Worried about not having enough power to get on the freeway for a couple of exits to the dump? Big trucks have faced the same problem since freeways were invented. And they still manage to get on. So will you. How else are you going to get control of your life, if you can’t insinuate yourself into traffic with a sixty-year old sixty-horsepower truck?
A little antsy about safety? Ok, a few minor concessions won’t totally ruin the experience. A modern collapsible steering column and three-point belts, if you must. I’m a purist, but I hope I don’t live to regret it. Or did I not say that right? Anyway, just don’t get rid of those levers to play with; the more the merrier. I wish I had a few more. And my doubts about there being an original engine under the hood of this one are only increasing. Maybe it’s a 2.5 liter Jeep four; that would be an acceptable compromise, if it really has to be. The Jeep truck’s unalterable ride will still give a good accounting of itself.
(image source blog.jeep.com)
The Willys truck appeared in 1947 as a natural evolution of the military Jeep. Wilys-Overland knew that given the flood of war surplus Jeeps, a brand extension was a necessity. The Jeep truck, the brilliant Jeep all-steel wagon, and the less-successful Jeepster all arrived in short order. An excellent move to capitalize on the Jeep name.
Actually, the four cylinders were a bit too little, even for the the nineteen-fifties. So by 1954, the good old Continental 226 cubic inch flathead six arrived, to supplant the Hurricane four. With a 3.3125″ bore and a 4.375″ stroke, the six was a torque-fest. Given that its other main application was in Kaiser-Frazier automobiles, the Hurricane was much more at home here. I’ve had the pleasure to make its acquaintance in a similar truck, and it will always have a spot in my heart. Perfect for the job at hand.
That doesn’t apply to the final engine choice also offered in the Jeep trucks last couple of years, from 1962 through 1965. That would be the ill-fated Tornado OHC 230 six, an engine that finally found its proper place in the Argentinean IKA Torino.
No matter what was up front, backing it was the venerable Warner T-90 three speed. No need for a four speed with granny gear low, when one had low range just a lever away. Assuming one had four wheel drive, of course.
Axles were Danas, except for some early Timken rears. Ratios? 5.38:1 standard with the fours; 4.88:1 with the six. If that wasn’t low enough, a 6.17:1 was an option. Well, maybe there was a reason some folks slipped an overdrive into their Jeeps. And maybe you need to rethink my freeway driving recommendations after all. I’m a bit prone towards imaginative thinking.
It doesn’t really matter what’s under the hood; what counts is to be behind the steering wheel, peering out at the world through those little flat windshield panes, one hand on the jerky tiller and the other on the that vibrating shift lever. That leaves no hands left for phones or other electronic devices. Your mind will be too engaged anyway; which is exactly the point.
You are describing my life from a number of years ago. Pre-wife, pre-kids, a new VW GTI for daily life and an old F-100 for those Saturday chores. Except that, living in a city apartment, I had no Saturday chores. No matter, I would always find something to use the truck for, even if it was just a drive for fun.
Mine was a 63 F-100 short bed Flareside with a 6 and the 4 speed stick. A previous owner decided that the springs needed extra leaves, so it was pretty much the tires that provided all of the suspension action.
You are absolutely correct. There is nothing that clears the dreck out of a guy’s head like getting into an old all-steel pickup truck with no radio. You listen to the music of the machinery. We don’t really drive modern cars, but an old pickup like this, you DRIVE. Levers, cables, pedals, and that big black steering wheel that demands constant attention. In truth, I was always kind of worn out after half of a Saturday in the thing, but the next week, I would always fire it up and take it out. I miss it.
And this is one really cool Jeep! As a kid, I spent a little time once in a Jeep wagon of this era, but never a pickup. I can’t be too hard on the owner for the three-point belts, it is a smart thing to do if you drive it much. I had no belts in my F-100, which was not really a very smart way to drive.
In my case, it was a 1964 Chevrolet Fleetside… originally for my oldest son, as a present from his grandpa, I “inherited” it, when he got tired of working on it… five kids later, the truck is back with him again! As for Jeep trucks… heck, ANY Jeep is cool, either truck or CJ… my next-to-youngest son has a ’67 Jeep which is in pieces, in his garage… fun!
I’m with you there. I live in Seattle and was hard pressed to find a place that had a spot for my 69′ GMC to sit. I have a 97′ BMW to commute in, but I wish I could justify the GMC into “daily driver” status.
Wouldn’t any older car, say pre-1965 or so fulfill the same mission as this Jeep pickup? Except for loaded or top of the line examples, many cars of this era still lack many of the stuff that made our new cars so convenient, but also so appliance-like?
BTW I believe this kind of Jeep is commonly used in Manila as public transportation.
The Jeepneys in the Philippines started out being based in Jeeps leftover from the war but these days, they are 100% custom made in the Philippines. Naturally aspirated diesel engines and manual transmissions are brought in by the boatload from Japan as simple, reliable power.
Simplicity is the catchword here; no power steering and drum brakes, since discs would be too hard to push the pedal on. Along with this simplicity usually comes bald tires, too! The drivers hard lives as there is no a/c and the traffic in Manila is horrendous, as are the potholed roads. The drivers frequently work 16 hour days in the heat and pollution. The last time I was there in 2010 the fare for a ride was P12 or about 25 cents.
One time, in my younger years, I had a 100 km trip in a Jeepney along a dirt track, knee deep in mud in places. The skill of the driver was amazing and he never got stuck. The passenger area was full of kids, babies, women, old men, chickens, fighting roosters and sacks of cargo. There was also a goat. My buddy and I chose to sit on the roof. Every time the Jeep stopped (which was frequently) we’d run into the local Sari-Sari store and grab a few cold ones at like P10 each. By the time we go to Puerto Galera (six hours!) we’d quaffed about a dozen coolies each. The best part was once we go to Sabang, it was happy hour! Two beers for a buck in any bar!
Where exactly where you transiting from to get to Puerto Galera? Mindoro, being small, is usually accessed through Batangas via some sort of boat. Once you land in Puerto Galera there is the jeepney to reach Sabang. Did that once from Sabang actually and yes it was a rocky ride. I would always get to Sabang via a banca and have been doing that since 1991.
Or, did you take a jeepney from Manila? That is gutsy. I just took the aircon bus to Batangas for a hundred or so pesos since I wasn’t into torture.
Even a 20 year old truck is too modern. Got overwhelmed with the enormity of too many toys and gave away the 1940 international to my nephew. What I have left that fits the bill that you are describing is an international harvester (farmall) cub tractor with the flathead four.
You can’t grind the gears, however. You are instructed to pick one that fits your need for speed for the day and stay there. Stop again if you must change. Since I don’t plow or any of the rest of that farmer stuff, mine is hooked to my tool trailer but it’s always ready to go. It’s responsibility is to get me to the job and back and, so far, it’s doing just fine.
Re: tractor gearing.
My 2003 Deere 790 (bottom end compact utility tractor) is that way too. I had no need for the hydrostatic trans in similar tractors, so for the 24HP engine, the sliding collar trans with two-speed transfer case does it all. I seldom use low range, and for mowing the weeds, 1st high at 2600 RPM gives me about 3 mph and the proper speed for the brushcutter.
I’ve towed a utility trailer at top speed (11 MPH) to get junk to the transfer station, but was happy it was only a half mile. The unsprung suspension/short wheel base/fast steering and high center of gravity all give a whole new meaning to “twitchy”.
I love the Jeep. Wouldn’t mind having one with a small water tank and pump for fire duty. (Don’t “need” it, just want one.)
With the tank and pump these used to be standard equipment for the Victorian Country Fire Authority back in the fifties. I knew a farmer in the nineties who used an old ex-CFA Jeep for his farm truck. He never took it into town – it was a bit too rusty for that – but it just kept on going and going. And going some more. Unkillable.
wstarvingteacher: If you’re going to haul a wagon or something a few miles down the road, fifth gear in Farmalls came in handy. And it was a bit high to start in, so double clutching from fourth to fifth was the preferred way. It took me a while to figure that out though: https://www.curbsideclassic.com/auto-biography/tractor-driving-maniac-auto-biography-part-6/
While my 8N doesn’t have one, the Sherman hi-lo transmission add-on gives the 8N right close to a 21mph maximum velocity, which can only be described as “ludicrous speed.”
I drove a Ford 5000, a 1970’s 75hp (apparently) tractor with a weird gear layout, on a tomato harvest. It topped out at ~20mph which made stopping on the dirt paddock tracks interesting with 4 or 5 ton of unbraked trailer on the back, without the brakes pinned together because you needed to use on or the other for traction at times. Pretty soon got the timing right to avoid using the clutch, although I think I did on down changes to make it happier. There were 3 tractors working, loading fruit from the harvester (crawling), unloading & reloading bins and driving back and forth (flat out). They had a hard life, got a new clutch each year for harvest to avoid breakdowns
I like it, but would prefer a nice, 1951 Chevy instead. More “modrun”.
My friend back in Missouri still has his 1980 Jeep J-10, more-or-less. Now it’s a stake bed, altered and rebuilt a 100 times into something I don’t feel safe in and doesn’t run much anymore. But it kinda runs…I think…I’ll have to call him this weekend to find out…
Heh, my father was still driving an ’82 J10 as late as 1998. That 360 engine was tough as nails, but my wife remembers it as the Flintstone truck because the floorboards were completely rusted out. So it was junked and replaced with a RAM 1500.
My in-laws have one of these. I love driving it around town. My FIL installed a seatbelt so we can take my oldest boy around. Picking up the Christmas tree with it tonight.
The truck, in it’s original red paint, was originally used at a couple Texaco service stations here in Boise, that my wife’s grandfather owned. Still have the old Texaco sideboards too.
Looks like an IH steering wheel/column. Steering box replacement? I prefer to think it’s still manual steering.
Inventory- gearshift for transmission, gearshift for transfer case, gearshift for winch. There’s still a ways to go- another gearshift for overdrive.
My 52 Ford F-1 has the girly column shift.
Yes that does look like an IH deluxe horn pad on that steering wheel. The Steering box looks a lot like a manual Scout II TRW unit too. Now you’ve got me worried that yet another Scout lost it’s life to make a Jeep into a capable off-roader. CJ guys love the Scout II Dana 44 axles to replace their wimpier Dana 27 and 30 units.
Both of the shift levers on the right are likely for the transfer case, the early Dana 18 Transfer case had separate levers for the engaging the front and rear axles. So it is possible to put it into FWD.
Could be a 2-lever transfer case; in that case, if there’s a winch, it must be wimpy electric.
So- with the 2-lever tc, another lever for PTO + another for the overdrive = 5 gearshifts?
Dunno if PTO + overdrive is possible; both bolted to the same place on the back of the tc.
An aside- the sheet metal on these is simple & not drawn very much because the stampings were done on presses usually used for making appliances.
Yes. The story I read was that, coming out of the war period, Willys-Overland needed body-stamping equipment – and none was to be had. So Charlie Sorenson, who’d been kicked out of Ford when Henry II asserted control and who surfaced at Willys…bought stamping equipment from a defunct washing-machine plant. The body of those “basket-weave” wagons and pickups were all drawn around the inability to make deep stampings; and of course the contours in the panels were the only way to give them strength.
FWIW…that looks to me like a right-hand-drive model that’s been converted over. That would explain the right-side-only windshield wiper; the not-American top mounting; the fabricated dashboard and the IH steering column and gear.
One of my favorites! I’ll eventually get around to owning one of these. If I’m ever able to buy a small farm a Willys wagon and Pickup with a plow would be mandatory!!
I use a back blade on my tractor for snow (with loader when it gets nasty), but a neighbor has a blade on his CJ-5. Brave man. Another neighbor used a blade on an old M-37 until the axle broke.
I don’t think I could stomach plowing with a CJ.
My ex-father in law has an old JD 2640 with a loader that he uses for plowing. With the exception of having an open cab it was fun.
My grandfather had a CJ5 with a plow to do their very long and steep driveway. That was pretty much its sole role at their house other than occasional trips to one of the summer cabins.
Us kids just liked riding with him or my father in it up and down the street when we visited Connecticut for the summer…
My uncle and father told me it replaced a Hillman Minx that my grandfather attempted to use to plow snow with…
I tow my trailer with a Hillman Minx we dont get snow round here so Ive never tried ploughing with it
We tried using an old single bottom horse plow pulled behind a CJ once. Even in low-low, it was way to fast.
Check out the back bumper of the yellow truck in the ad above. It appears to have a power takeoff driving a pulley, for powering other machinery (sawmill, small grist mill, etc). My grandfather’s 1951 Allis-Chalmers had that same pulley on the side, and I once saw him use it to drive a 2′ diameter saw blade mounted to the front of the tractor – no guards, no table, just this massive spinning disc of death that you would bravely present an offering of uncut limb (tree limb, that is) to!
Nice catch that certainly looks like the old belt drive PTO used heavily on tractors back in the day. Never seen a unit for truck like that before though. It does note in the ad “Power Take Off optional”.
Popular fitting for old Landrovers back in the day pretty much everything ran of a flat belt
@ Redmondjp
Kind of like this one?
I think any PTO powered option for the GP Jeep was adaptable to the Truck.
I volunteer at Oregon’s Collier park for the Living History exhibit (Father’s Day–consider a trip). One of the attractions is a working 25HP Russel steam engine driving a shingle mill. That’s a 30″ saw blade set to take a slice of cedar at one go. I’d rather work the engine, thank you. Nothing brings out my paranoia like a spinning blade with few guards.
(We have two other working steamers- an Aultman-Taylor 75 tractor and a 12 HP Westinghouse tractor. Lots of old Cats and the occasional Model T van.)
You nailed it. This captures perfectly why I never handed over the job of landfill runs to my sons. That’s an hour’s drive out and back that I look forward to each month. Sadly, I had to park the ’69 F-100 this past summer, and now make the runs in a ’95 F-150. It’s too comfortable, by far…
Someone mentioned “not farming” with their Cub… We’re on 15 acres, and I do farm, after a fashion, with my restored 8N (no trailer queen here!). Everything from making hay to planting, harvesting and plowing. Plowed 10 acres last month with a 14″ two-bottom plow – spent over 20 hours in the bare-metal seat, and loved it (well, except for the three breakdowns). It’s a pretty different world from the ‘real farmers’ around us – I don’t think they even get to smell the dirt anymore.
Your life sounds a bit like my Dad’s was. He lived in the country and while he did not farm, he owned some acreage and kept a tractor around for mowing and general utility. When I was around 10, it was an old John Deere Model B with the spoked wheels. Within a couple of years, he got tired of playing Green Acres and bought a more modern Oliver 550 with a hydraulic bucket on the front and a PTO on the back. I had my share of seat time in both of them growing up, and loved every minute.
This thing went from 8 (1948) to 16 hp and was designed to replace the horse on the one horse farm. The 8n/9n were considerably stronger. I needed it when I bought it for the belly mounted brush hog. I bought a llama and some donkeys so I am reduced to hauling trailers and pulling logs. Does a good job but you have to see it up close or with someone on it to realize how little it truly is. You could walk your dog with first gear. Very slow but thanks to gearing just about able to do anything. Much harder to get stuck than my truck.
Okay, back to old trucks! My 1936 Chevy half-ton woodie does the job for me, although if I were to get an old pickup, this is first on the list.
On another note – my mother had a 1950 Jeep wagon when I was a tot. It had the Continental six, but was a two-wheel-drive, which my parents chose in order to get the six. 4 wheelers only came with the four then. Perhaps this is also true of the pickup? I vaguely remember that it had a three-in-the-tree, but I could be mistaken about that – I was only six when they sold it.
I took my first solo drive in that car. I was three, and my mother let me play in it one day while she put away the groceries. She’d left it i neutral with the brake set. I guess I kicked the brake, or something like that, and the car rolled out the driveway backwards, with mom running after it. She got the door open, but couldn’t get around the door to reach in, and watched helplessly as the car and I cruised across the street (no cars coming!) on to the neighbors’ lawn a foot away from their oak tree. It would be a good decade before I tried solo in a car again.
One other thing about these trucks. As an architect, I pay a lot of attention to the quality of spaces that I inhabit. Any pickup truck prior to the mid-fifties was built in a way that the sheetmetal elegantly housed the engine and the driver together in a package separate from the load and from the wheels. Paint colors, trim, and body detailing reinforced that. The load to be carried was one piece, and the wheels were another, but the driver and the engine were a unit. I have always loved seeing old trucks that way, as it reinforces my view of properly driving a vehicle.
That hankering after an old truck has led many a man astray. (Maybe some women too, although I haven’t met one).
Anybody else out there get infected with John Jerome’s book “TRUCK” ?
I rest my case.
Oh my goodness, I laughed so hard I cried, reading Jerome’s book! Waaay too many pages were “close to home”, like when he said his truck tried to kill him (trying to remove the kingpins). How many of our vehicles have tried to do us the same “favor”?
My Dad’s eyesight is failing, so I’m planning on recording myself reading “Truck” as a Christmas gift to him.
I’d love an early 50’s Dodge truck. It epitomized the basic, practical, nothing pretty, just-get-the-work-done pickup…. as Jerome called it: a little Harry Truman of a truck.
I miss the days when the only black box you saw under the hood was the battery, but appreciate the convenience and reliability that comes with fuel injection, anti-lock brakes, and all-wheel drive on nasty, sleeting, New England commutes.
My grandfather had an early 60’s Dodge pickup with three-on-the-tree. I remember as a little kid riding with him to the store and watching him flipping that shifter around wondering, “How does he know where the gears are?” (It was a few years before I got the chance to find out when I bought a 53 Plymouth Savoy.)
My grandfather also had a small Cat dozer he had to hand-crank to start. Once he let me drive it to a stump he had to pull out. WOW, was that a blast for a pre-teen in the 60’s!
My father had one of these when I was quite young. He loved that thing. I remember riding in it and looking down at the road below because there was a rust hole in the floor!
My mom has a picture of me sitting on the hood of it when I was about five.
Tomorrow I am taking my dad’s last truck, an ’03 Ranger FX4 and trading it towards a new ’12 Escape. I hope my dad would have approved…
When I was a kid in high school – and those were the days when kids didn’t get new cars as their due, the summer before their senior year – we had, not one but TWO Jeep Basket-Weave wagons driven by students. Totally unrelated; and of vastly different years. Both were in good shape; heavy on the “patina” but relatively rust-free. Which in Northern Ohio, was rare. And since those wagons were daily drivers by kids, they were doomed to tinworm from the day they were bought.
I get the appeal of the simple truck – oh, gawd, do I get it; it was the whole raison d’être of my Mail Jeep – but if I were going to go the Jeep route, and not the 1957 Chevy Truck route, not the Studebaker Champ route, I’d go with a CJ-2A. Simple as a Tonka truck. Short and sweet – and a thrill a mile.
Someday, I may yet. All I need is a rusted-out donor, to give me a VIN plate. Everything else, I can get hold of aftermarket…frame; axles; even engine and tranny.
My brother the one that has a knack for killing cars had one of these a 53 IIRC with a flat bed for a while. The timing chain went in it’s Continental 6 and we had fun changing that outside in the snow. Especially when the chain is supposed to have marked links for lining up with the marks on the gear and the replacement chain didn’t have them.
As for driving an all steel old school truck you could say I love it as I use my Scouts as commuters most of the time.
I’ve got three different reminisces here. First is the ’48 four-cylinder 2-wheel drive Jeep station wagon an employee of my dad’s had. Three-speed tranny, column shift with remarkably short throw. Butt-easy to drive, slow to begin with but didn’t seem much bothered by loads – at least ones that the suspension would handle.
Second, my old 1950 Ford pickup, faded red, with a flathead V8, granny-box 4-speed, and so help me, a ratchet rear end. This primitive form of locking differential made it possible for that pickup to pull a stalled loaded flatbed truck off the train tracks when a train was comin’ – we found a couple of guys to pile into the back of the pickup for traction. That pickup didn’t have a straight body panel or an un-cracked piece of glass on it, but it was solid as could be. It had about a hundred pounds of angle iron welded into a combination rear bumper, trailer hitch, and box reinforcement. I wish I had it now – I was living in Tacoma in the mid-60’s when I had it and didn’t get as much use out of it as I would now. My 2003 Silverado is definitely on the new and wussy side for dump runs.
And third, in the 60’s and 70’s around here I used to see quite a few older pickups that were equipped with a broom in one front stake pocket and a shovel in the other. In particular there was one pretty decent looking 1937 Chevrolet half-ton that had faded dark green paint and the broom-and-shovel accessory. One day on the way to work I pulled out right behind the old Chevy and discovered that it had a Mississippi license plate and a navy yard parking sticker. I guess some sailor liked his ol’ truck enough to bring it clear across the country to western Washington.
Saw an early 50’s bottle green Studebaker pickup at the hardware store yesterday (ID’d thanks to the white script on the tailgate), looked fully restored quite similar to this one although I didn’t look in the cab (only saw it from the rear)
They’re out there… http://bringatrailer.com/2011/11/23/bat-exclusive-1948-willys-overland-pick-up/
A friend of mine uses a 85 Dodge pick up to pull tree stumps with in our mobile home park. He’s been doing that for thirteen years (the time I have lived there) and probably longer than that. He paints it every few years with white house paint and a brush. Very cool truck. He cruises around the park in it in low gear and you can always hear that truck coming.
My uncle owned a tire shop in western Illinois. One of his hobbies was prospecting for uranium in Utah in the early 50s. There he learned the value of 4-wheel drive and Jeeps. Since that time he always had a Jeep of one description or another as his shop vehicle. In 1965 he built the 1953 pickup shown here. School bus yellow with a Plymouth 318. He commissioned me to do the lettering. I thought it appropriate that since his shop was only about ten miles from the Mississippi that the typeface that I chose was Showboat. Even with the 318 this truck really wasn’t all that fast, but it was faster than any other Jeep around. The steering was incredibly stiff, and the ride punishing. The only thing that would compress the springs was a full load of oak that I had split. The maul that my uncle had fabricated for me was made from a Chrysler torsion bar. I was pretty buff at the time.
I just bought a 1951 willys jeep pickup last week .I searched for months to find the right one.I had to have it shipped from Washington state to Pennsylvania It is bright orange. It shows the life it lived working in a lumber yard for 60 years. I am 60 years old to and feel just like that old truck. Its slow and steady witch is more than I can say about myself . I only hope we can enjoy the rest of our lives together in retirement going to the lake & river to go fishing , and the store as needed.
bern
Sounds great! Can you share a picture?
Sounds great! Can you share a picture?
not sure how too,but will look into it,bern
MY TRUCK IS THE #121 TRUCK OF THE MONTH AT KAISERWILLYS .IT HAS TAKEN A GREAT DEAL MORE WORK THAN I THOUGHT , BUT, SHOULD BE DONE EARLY SUMMER OF 2014 .I WILL SEND PIC,S THEN .YOU WILL NOT BELIEVE THE TRANSFORMATION TO THE FINAL APPEARENCE.
BERNIE
HI,
DOES ANYONE NO HOW TO TELL THE L 134 4 FROM THE F 134 4 F ENGINE.
MINE IS A 4 CYCLINDER WITH ANGLED SPARKS ON THE DRIVERSIDE.
THANK YOU .
BERN
That would be the F-head. The flat head has the spark plugs on the very top of the very flat head, sticking straight up.
THANK YOU SIR,
WOULD YOU NO THE HORSE POWER SPEC.S ON THIS MOTOR? IT SEEMS TO GO AROUND 50 M.P.H. ALTHOUGH NOT SURE AS SPEEDO NEEDS REPLACED.
BERN
HI GUY,
IS MY 1951 WILLYS PICKUP 4X4 134F, A NEGITIVE OR POS. GROUND ? HOW DO YOU TELL. IT HAS BLACK CABLES ON BOTH TERMINALS? THANK YOU SIR.
I would commit crimes for one of these 4wd Willys trucks!
Fine old trucks indeed .
I shoulda bought one back when they were every where and only $150…..
-Nate
I like it. This is my idea of what a pickup truck should be. I’m not the most purist of vintage vehicle enthusiasts. I’d upgrade a few things, to make it safer for modern traffic. But I’d leave as much as original as I can. I’d have a 4 cyl. turbo diesel engine installed and a 5 spd. manual shifting transmission. I’d also have front disc brakes installed in place of the original drums. 🙂
It wasn’t all that slow. I owned a ’50 F-head with 2-wheel drive around 1970. It had a lively feel, quick steering and crisp shifting. It reached 60 at the same rate as, say, a Chevy 6 sedan. It wasn’t happy at 60 but it did get there and stay there.
Best part was the traction. Even without weight in the bed, the Willys got through snow and ice when nobody else was moving.
I just realized, this may not have been THE first post I read here on CC, but this was definitely one of the most memorable from when I first found the site. 2 years, man. Time flys!
*I would still do horrible unforgiveable things for one of these trucks though*
Wonderful timing.
A co-worker was showing off his new Sierra today. It was over 54 grand! More than $54,000! And there were more expensive ones on the lot from what he was saying.
No thanks! I’ll keep my 95 F150 until the rust gets too be too much. Then I’ll find another one or similar.
I don’t need my truck to be a Wireless Hotspot. I don’t want my Truck to “read” Text Messages to me. And I really don’t need it to be more well appointed than my Home!
What a great truck. Personality in spades.
There is a red one just like this one a few streets away having a transmission swap for a Trans Am one(please don’t ask). I will have to snag a picture or two next time I go to Denny’s.