Sometimes the world changes quickly, sometimes little by little; the latter being the case of Jeeps. Back in the day, the no-nonsense Jeeps were part of our landscapes, but only in small doses. At the time, who would have imagined the brand would become commonplace?
Before all that happened, we saw the marque growing slowly. And today’s gallery pays attention to those days, featuring at least one Jeep product in each image. Naturally, most vintage photos with Jeeps capture their military duties, but this collection stays mostly away from that.
Leaving those aside, these images feature Jeep products at work, fun, and service; with most images dating to the ’50s and ’60s.
Jerry’s Texaco jeep reminds me that when 4WD was uncommon every town had a Jeep to push or pull stuck things.
Now everybody has their own AWD.
“Piggly Wiggly”, right across the street!
Note the price of gas in the background: 27¢ for regular, 31¢ for premium. I also note a VW Beetle in the background.
I’ll take a guess of 1968.
The CC effect strikes again, as I spent yesterday exploring the remote forest roads (some very rough and steep) near Port Orford in my friend Alan’s 1943 Jeep, which has been updated with a Buick V6, disc brakes, bigger tires, power steering and a few other changes. I got to drive it for part of the time; it’s quite the gnarly little beast, a cross between a tractor and car.
The DIP warning in the street is unusually polite. Note the wavy line showing the length of the dip area.
I love all these .
I had much fun in a 1952 M38A1 Jeep (military version of early CJ5) in the woods in New Hampshire in the 1960’s .
-Nate
2nd photo: Hay Bales
Is the gentleman on top holding a cat or dog??
My guess is a cat!!
My lazy cats won’t venture past the neighbor’s driveway!!
That one does/ did entail some ‘rather extensive staging”.
Cat.
Black and white cats are much braver than color cats.
My family had a ’50 Jeep station wagon for a few years in the early ’60s, but I have no photos of it.
The photo with the G. O. Guy drugstore and the Thriftway supermarket has to be in Seattle.
The final pic, with all the “sunny locale” features; Is the orange car an, early “50’s Ford”. Looks good in that color combo.
Looks like a 55 Plymouth
Yes, definitely a ’55 Plymouth. There’s a ’62 Pontiac Tempest at the Union 76 station, so the Plymouth was at least 7 years old at the time.
Great images Rich! The first pic, would make an outstanding vector illustration, or wall-sized acrylic painting.
The appeal of the outdoors lifestyle, makes one wonder why, the sport-utility boom didn’t take off sooner.
The last photo, the pink Jeep with the surrey, was also made as a Tonka toy circa 1962-1963. The Jeeps appeared in the Elvis movie “Fun in Acapulco”. Elvis liked them so much he bought one for his Graceland estate.
I currently own and occasionally drive a 1950 Jeepster 4 cylinder, like the red one pictured. I can not in my wildest dream imagine driving one of those in a metropolitan environment. They are definitely a back rural road kind of car.
The picture with the trolley cars looks to be in Metro Boston. They still have a fleet of those 1940s cars in service that run between Mattapan and Ashmont. It’s always been cheaper to rebuild them than to upgrade the tracks to accept modern equipment but I’ve read that they are due to be replaced. I haven’t ridden them in over 40 years but they always had a very soothing sound with their quiet electric power and the wheels clicking over the tracks.
At 1st I thought the Willys Jeep station wagon was on the track, with the trolleys (same coloration). Jeep wagons were indeed often used as track inspection vehicles & had auxiliary steel wheels that could be lowered into place so the vehicle could ride the rails. Strangely, Checker Marathon wagons were commonly used for this purpose too, along with mid-50s Buick wagons.
I learned to drive a manual in 1970 on the gas station’s service vehicle, an old enclosed body regular jeep. 3 speed crash box with a top speed of maybe 35. It would, and did, go anywhere. Just not very quickly…
My uncle Conrad, a Ford dealer in PA found a 1947 Willy’s jeep in a friend’s weed patch , and asked how much the owner wanted for it. As a joke he said one dollar and you tow it away. Conrad said, here’s your dollar. He towed the jeep to his garage, cleaned it,fixed it, used it till he died. That jeep still runs.