That old Jeep-in-a-crate story

I'll bet!!! Ill make you an offer right now $250.00. C'mon, through in the machine gun! That a 500% profit.

OK My .02 worth... I knew a man in Phx back in the 60s who bought a Ford version of the MB at auction  out at Litchield park NAS near Phx in 1946. I don't remember what he paid for it but he uncrated it right at the base put the wheels on Put fuel, oil, and water in it and drove it home to Phx about 15 miles. He still had it and I did a lot of work on and used it dear hunting up near Payson Az. in about 1964. I lost track of it and him...

Joe Friday wrote: FBill is right on target. As a matter of fact, Bill posted once about Russell's Jeep parts. Russell dragged Jeep 'residue' from all over the US back to west Texas to meet the demands of the 'hunting jeeps'. He said he bought and sold over 350 Jeeps in the 1970's and early 80's. He said they were between $50 and $750 each, and it took an average of 3 Jeeps to create a good one. Back then you could send a SASE (Self addressed stamped envelope) to the DOD surplus sales division and get the auction flyer for free. Like Bill said, almost every newspaper and magazine advertised that they would SELL you the information on how to buy these Jeeps even though the information was FREE. (I think I still have some) It's kind of like the websites that offer to sell you the info on how to buy confiscated cars, trucks, and boats.

HMMM. Living in Texas... Lotsa Jeep stuff sitting around from all over the Country...
Sound like anybody we know????

Russell passed away a few years ago. His sons have pretty much cleared the place out for scrap metal. Somewhere around here I have a list of all the serial #'s from the Jeeps there.

Joe Friday wrote: FBill is right on target. As a matter of fact, Bill posted once about Russell's Jeep parts. Russell dragged Jeep 'residue' from all over the US back to west Texas to meet the demands of the 'hunting jeeps'. He said he bought and sold over 350 Jeeps in the 1970's and early 80's. He said they were between $50 and $750 each, and it took an average of 3 Jeeps to create a good one. Back then you could send a SASE (Self addressed stamped envelope) to the DOD surplus sales division and get the auction flyer for free. Like Bill said, almost every newspaper and magazine advertised that they would SELL you the information on how to buy these Jeeps even though the information was FREE. (I think I still have some)

I remember the $50.00 jeeps back in the 70's  sent for some info  and what I got was info on what they  called land drops . they looked as if they were dropped abort 2 miles with no parachute. Broken axles  and trannys  sticking up through the floors.  Wish I still had this info.

Any of the 60's and early 70's how to mags would have ads for jeeps for prices from $35 to $50....All were totally bogus ads that offered information that was available from the govenment for free. Some features pics of crated jeeps, some actually advertised jeeps in a crate that just needed assembly.

I remember sitting in Study hall in 10th grade doing my usual build a jeep on paper out of the JC Whitney catalog. One of my friends was reading stuff he had gotten in the mail about surplus jeeps...There was some sort of auction thing going on and he wanted all of us together  to try and bid on some jeeps. Problem was that you had to buy 14 or 15 at a time, and the jeeps were not guaranteed to be complete running driveable jeeps. It would have been quite doable then but with our luck we would have bought a lot of 13 frames with grilles and nothing else. Of course all the pictures in the brochure were all the nice jeeps in crates and a few assembled factory new ones. And then there was the transport problem with none of us owning licenses or having a good place for that many jeeps. Several of my buddies lived on farms so we had a place to drive them once one was built.

I don't even know if they were flatfenders or 151 series, as we never got beyond the large quantity purchase required. At the time (1974) I don't think I knew the difference. I returned to my usual study hall pastimes of seeing if JC WHitney had enough parts in their catalog to build a complete jeep from. and attempting to see if there was any way I could register my Model A Ford doodlebug for the road. Actually owning a jeep would have to wait several decades.

Sure would like to find an early 70's JC Whitney catalog. For some reason the parents made me toss all mine on a regular basis..

Here's my Jeep in a crate story (true story). My dad had worked for a international arms broker based out of Atlanta after getting out of the Army. The guy retired and my dad stayed in touch with him and sometime in the early 70's the guy told my dad about a lot of crated Jeeps that were coming up for bid. I'm not sure what model they were (This all took place when I was 8 or 9).