Jeeps in Crates Army Article

[BobPalma]

'Don't know if this has been posted before, but I searched "Jeeps in Crates" and didn't come up with anything, so here tis:

http://www.mvpa.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/103_Jeeps_in_Crates.pdf

Interesting. BP

[Gunslinger]

Neat stuff. Back in the early 1960's, my dad found out about some crated up surplus Jeeps were to be sold by the government. He wanted to get one but they were withdrawn from public sale...foreign aid and Vietnam needs took precedent.

[t walgamuth]

I remember seeing jeeps advertised for like $50 back in the late fifties, early sixties. never knew anybody who bought one though. I always assumed it was false advertising...cynical for a kid, eh?

[Buzzard]

Interesting how innovative the allies were to get so much compacted into a single crate. Did you know they did that with the Studebaker US-6 's and shipped them to a port in Iran for assembly prior to their long drive to Russia? They were the only lend lease trucks that the Russians would accept as none of the other makes could deal with the severe Russian winters. Apparently mine originated in one of those crates at the wars' end (produced around August '45) and ended up in ranch country in Montana.
Bill

[wittsend]

I remember seeing jeeps advertised for like $50 back in the late fifties, early sixties. never knew anybody who bought one though. I always assumed it was false advertising...cynical for a kid, eh?

"It's true. You can buy US government surplus Jeeps for $44." Those ads ran next to the sea monkey's and X-Ray glasses.

What amazes me is that we didn't declare war until the end of 1941 and three and a half years later it was over. A significant amount of what was accomplished occurred with many able bodied men overseas. With job posting regulations, background checks, equity aspects, environmental issues today you probably couldn't get a plant approved until (hypothetically) long after the war was over - much less have made anything.

Knock down kits have an interesting aspect with another car I am associated with. Apparently 79 Sunbeam Tigers were sent to South Africa as knock downs. This was pretty much unknown until a man named Norm Miller wrote a book on the Tiger and the information turned up in his investigations. BTW, there was an episode of "Chasing Classic Cars" where a Jeep was stated to have been found in box, assembled and had close to zero miles on it. If aspects of the collector field apply to knock downs then I'd assume the Jeep was worth far more un-assembled. And the plywood box it came in? Priceless!

I found this article interesting because it relates a story of someone who actually claimed to have bought a crated Jeep though it was $500, not $50 dollars. http://olive-drab.com/od_mvg_jeeps_50dollars.php The story gets interesting around the mid-point.

[BShaw]

My dad and an uncle bought several of those surplus jeeps in the 50s as a resale "opportunity". Don't recall how much they were delivered. They were shipped to Montana by rail, knocked down in crates. Dad said the things were encased in cosmolene, which took them days and days to get each one cleaned up and assembled. Once done they "flipped" them for a profit but dad said the amount they made really wasn't worth the time and effort put in...which says a lot as dad routinely spent 12 hours a day working on and under trucks and belly dumps without many complaints.

[paintim613]

Local urban legend here is that after WWII ended the army disposed of trucks, jeeps, tanks, etc. by burying them in huge holes out in the desert nearby. Anyone confirm/deny?

[Gunslinger]

It seems unlikely that they would have been disposed of like that. So much equipment was used for foreign aid, kept in reserve, used as targets, etc., to simply be buried. Now...overseas, much obsolete equipment not suited for foreign aid or too expensive to ship back to the US was burned, dumped overboard at sea or otherwise destroyed. A lot of equipment that was disabled or not economically repairable was simply left in place to rot...particularly in the Pacific theater. In the continental US and in Europe, many aircraft were cut up for the aluminum after reusable equipment was removed.

Lots of Lend-Lease equipment was dumped in the ocean as it either had to be returned or destroyed by terms of the law...and returning it was too expensive.

These days, lots of excess and obsolete equipment such as tanks get dumped in the ocean to form artificial reefs offshore.

[fiveftsix]

It was an early scam.
What you got if you responded to one of those adds was a list of surplus auctions.
Not a $50 jeep
I have a few surplus catalogs from 46 issued by the war assets administration in Jacksonville Florida
Offering Vets ONLY surplus vehicles at bases all over Florida
Average sale price was over $500 for a jeep !!!!
Quite a considerable amount in those days
6x4 GMC cargo`s over $1200
Harley Davidsons just under $200
1 1/2 ton 4x4 Chev`s just under $1.000
Cushman scooters under $100
But no crated jeeps anywhere listed !!!!!
Although in California there were a batch that had been crated that ended up under the sea, rescued unpacked and a few of that batch were rebuilt by the army and then offered, the rest were just cleaned up and offered as was.
Those were also only offered to Vets.




Geoff