When two loves converge

[Willys]

Today was our town's annual streetfest. I was there early to enter my 1953 CJ3b in the car show then, later, met up with our community band to run through a few marching band tunes prior to our performance at streetfest.

I was thankful for the backpack straps on my bag as I trekked the 4 blocks to my Jeep. The Cerveny ended up riding shotgun on the way home.

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[the elephant]

Love it!

[York-aholic]

What a great looking bag!



The Jeep’s not bad looking either.

[1 Ton Tommy]

Now that's my idea of a Jeep. Hope you have a seat belt for the horn. The naked horn would be a nice display along with the Jeep. Just chain the bottom bow to the brake pedal. Much cooler than a skeleton.

[tubatodd]

What a great looking bag!

It doubles as a soft top for the Jeep.

[tofu]

https://www.facebook.com/reel/1031433318782214

Did you save the box?

And…can you assemble it in 4 minutes??? How long to assemble if Germans are shooting at you???

At Model T Ford meets when I was a kid that was a big thing - putting together a Model T in 10 minutes and driving away.

It really is amazing how the original Willys is still so similar to the current Jeep CJ. I wonder how much money has been made off that design since Willys-Overland developed it in 1941 for WWII. They (and subsequently Ford during the war) manufactured over 600,000 for the war effort between 1941-45. The American war production during WWII across industries and on short notice is just an amazing effort and should be taught and celebrated more. Everything from Ford’s epic River Rouge assembly plant rolling a finished B-24 Liberator bomber off the line every hour 24 hours day during the war Building 28 complete submarines in Manitowoc, WI - and then running them down Lake Michigan to Chicago and then through the I&M canal in Illinois to the Mississippi- then putting them on a floating dry dock to get through the shallow parts of the Mississippi and down to New Orleans for final outfitting of masks etc and then into the Gulf of Mexico. Converting old cargo steam ships into to training aircraft carriers in Chicago and then training over 28,000 carrier fighter pilots for the War on Lake Michigan off the shores of Chicago. Starting in 1941 the building of 25 Big Boy 4-8-8-4 Steam engines (biggest steam engine ever built) for the Union Pacific RR. The list goes on and on. Just an incredible effort across the nation. I’m not sure we could pull it off today.

There had been a real fight originally for that Army contract between Willys-Overland, Ford and Bantam with the Willys design winning. If I recall Kaiser took over Willys in the early 1960’s and then Kaiser-Jeep itself was bought by AMC in the later 1960’s and then in the late 1980’s Chrysler then bought AMC and then Daimler Benz bought Chrysler in the late 1990’s (a total disaster) and then Fiat-Chrysler and now Stellantis. None of them have managed to kill off Jeep…yet. Chrysler QC issues not withstanding.

[Willys]

Tofu, your chronology from Willys through Stellantis rings true. And, I'll take my '53 over any of the Chrysler made jeeps. They seem to be unable to design a frame that lasts more than 20 or so years.

Regarding the basic design, aside from decades of production under the jeep name, Mahindra (and a few others) have manufactured and sold essentially the same design globally as well.

In my original post, I neglected to mention the presence of my new Blokepiece OG Ultimate. I was out of town when it arrived so I grabbed it to use for a fun little set Saturday. As others have noted, I am quite well-pleased with the new mouthpiece. And, I'm looking forward to more time with it.