Featured History Cheap Government Vehicles...

Cliff Clavin style fun facts, after WW2 the government decided all surplus vehicles were to be sold at 7 distribution centers, I believe Omaha was one of them, sorry I forget the others, but they foolishly shipped the stuff all over the country just to sell it. This went on into the late 60's, then they started doing the "GSA" (general serves administration) to sell surplus stuff wherever it was at. Now days they have an outside company handle the sales. Some big wigs relative?

 

It's just the same as our collective hoards of trash/treasures. You can try to refurbish and sell at top dollar or have an auction company clear it all out. Since the volume is large and constant, it makes sense to do the latter. Otherwise, you create an entire new bureaucracy just to squeeze more cash out of the same stuff by spending more money and time.

 

There was a guy that owned one of the historic mansions in our town several years back. He made his fortune buying bulk lots of unsorted aircraft parts from the government. Some used, some new. His company would sort them, cl***ify them, and refurbish used parts. They were then sold, some back to the government.

 

We had 2 warehouses full of brand new 1940s-80s surplus at my base. Even a small steam shovel. They get Katrina-fied…

 

I know who you are speaking of. He also made a lot of $$$ harvesting gold and othersprecious metals from aircraft so much so that he had his own melting equipment to cast gold bars.

 

That's a funny story. Do you know how it turned out? Did the government come for the Jeeps, or did the city keep them?

In my part of the country, fire departments in rural areas usually had a surplus Dodge Power Wagon they got to use for fighting brush fires, but the things didn't actually get used very much so they just sat in the fire station for years and years. My home town finally had a raffle to get rid of theirs, alas I did not win.

 

I don't know how they got here (Australia), but there were a few LHD ex- US military Jeeps around the country. They couldn't be driven on the roads at that time as they were LHD, so most ended up doing farm duties. I remember a family friend had one they used in a cherry orchard, which was on the side of a hill. He reckoned that a standard tractor could not work on the slope, so he used the Jeep instead. It got cooked in one of the big bushfires we had a few years ago.

 

Back in the late 60s I had a buddy the worked in a large salvage/recycling yard. He told me that they had just bought 30 Army surplus Jeeps at auction to s****. He said they were required to cut the Jeeps in half by law...and sent GSA agents to verify.
He got to spend 2 weeks cutting Jeeps in half in the heat of summer.

 

i;d have tried to hide one!!

 

...or keep a couple of halves, and piece them back together. My dad did that occasionally when he owned his body shop - buy a front end wreck and a rear end wreck of the same make and make one good car out of them.

 

Late 70's, had a friend who worked at Camp Ripley in Minnesota. (Large Natl Guard base)
When they phased out the independent suspended 'Jeeps', they pulled engine/trans/transfer case and ran them all over with tanks.
The engine/trans was a modular unit for servicablily.
Just happen to know where about 30 of them are.

 

Think you're referring to M151A1's. The independent suspension made them prone to roll on the highway. One of the guys I served with rolled one during MP training at Ft. Gordon back in the early '70's. Supposedly they were never allowed to be sold as surplus to the civilian market. You see one listed very rarely in cl***ifieds.

 

Back in the early 1980's during the Murial Cuban Boat lift they were put into barracks at Ft. Indiantown Gap Pa. We were mobilized to guard them and on our arrival radio traffic indicated some had stolen am MP Jeep (M151A1) from the PX parking lot and were proceeding at a high rate of speed in our direction. I was driving one of those M151A1's when they p***ed us with 12 Cubans abord sitting on the rear fenders' legs hanging out of the vehicle. The Captain who I was driving ordered me to turn and pursue which I did. We caught up to them as they were exiting the base and the MP vehicle that was beside them swung his baton striking the driver. Immediately the overloaded Jeep began to swerve dislodging individuals eventually flipping and sliding to a stop upside down with people trapped underneath. Total carnage and none survived. Showed me the dangers real quick.

 

All true, the 151's were supposed to be cut up. I can remember lots of pieces in s**** yards, but never a whole unit. A few are still around, VietNam vets like em. They replaced the willys CJ style jeeps in the 60's sometime. They were nice rigs, easy to get in and out, made by Ford. Ralph Nader may have been in on their death sentence.

 

Also, I've had many Nam vets tell me" nice jeep, I drove one just like it in Nam". I say No, you guy's had M151's.
No, it was just like yours! no...it was not!

 

Don't know how many guys did push ups for calling an M151 a Jeep. Complete nomenclature was M151A1, 1/4 ton, truck utility, 4x4

 

Another M151 crash story. I had a summer job at the 1962 World Sport Parachute Championship in Orange, MA. Mostly emptying trash cans and being available for "Other duties as ***igned".

The US Army representative drove a military registered M151. One night, a local kid stole it. The Orange, MA police car gave chase (Close your eyes for a moment and envision a Checker Marathon Police car chasing a military "jeep" down a runway). The M151 rolled when it came off the end of the runway. The driver ran into the woods and escaped. Later that night, his parents brought him into the Emergency Room with lots of gl*** cuts.

 

Just found this:

 

Actually…

G=Government contract
P=80” wheelbase
W= Willys design

And here’s my MB before this gets locked…

 

In NZ we had many US Depots for the Pacific section of hostilities and many were returned here if they were in ok condition aswell as what we had also. Lots were sold to surplus supply dealers and a lot were pushed into holes and buried. I used to know a Jeep parts seller in the 70's that had a news paper clipping of many Jeeps lined up ready to go in the hole and be covered over, He was the bulldozer driver in the clipping. They are still there north of Wellinton NZ under Mc Kay's crossing, Railway / road intersection. JW

 

I've seen old photos of Australian yards loaded with ww2 stuff. The US shipped in gobs of it to prepare for a Japanese invasion that never happened because we dropped "the big one". One old friend went to the outback doing missionary stuff in the 60's, tells me all the farm tractors were tanks with the gun turret removed.

 

I went to a Government stores auction in the late 70's where a friend bought a WWII Scammel tank recovery truck wrecker type truck for $2K, interesting bit of kit. JW

 

Currently listed in Orange County, CA Currently licensed so some did make it into the civilian market. Probably considered OT so mods OK to delete.

 

Boy thats cool! even if its not fully restored, its still cool as heck!

 

Thanks! It’s fun (and done!)

 

What's the details? tub year, how you got it, etc...paint appears to be original?

 

I know this is a hot rod website so I'm going to keep it short but go to the "gov planet" website you can still get pretty good deals on really good stuff to this day sometimes it's vehicles sometimes it's Snap-on tool chests full of snappy tools giant made in the USA floor jacks for pennies.
Obviously if you live hundreds of miles from one of these places it may not be viable bid in the auctions but we have one here in Southern California in yermo which is just outside of Barstow about halfway to Las Vegas and it's not too bad of a drive for Southern California. We also if I remember correctly have auctions in Vegas and Phoenix Arizona.
I know when I look at the website you can search by region sometimes you can get pretty good deals it just depends.

 

My uncle was a supply guy in the pacific at the end of WW2. He told a story about a ship load of 1941 Chevys destine to be used in a land invasion of Japan. At the end of the war the entire load was dumped into the ocean. Government wanted the auto industry to thrive and a bunch of cheap war surplus cars would hinder that.

 

All these Jeep stories reminds me of the MASH episode where Radar was freaking out because someone stole the Jeep he and Hawkeye were using. Hawkeye fixed the problem by stealing a General's Jeep to replace it. Another episode was where Hawkeye and Col. Potter were caught in a shootout, and an enemy mortar blew up their Jeep. Hawkeye looked at it and said, "Wait till Triple-A hears about this!"