| My jeep Story |
| This is the story how we found the jeep. I guess it happend to many people in this way. How we found it My father and I purchased the jeep in summer 1995 from a dealer in pre-war American cars, who took it as containerfilling from the States to The Netherlands. It turned out that the jeep came from Montana, where it was presumably used for more than 40 years by a farmer. Although we had already bought and studied jeep-books for 2 years, we were unable to identify it immediately, although we were certain it was a genuine WWII jeep. So we bought it and towed it home. Then it became clear that it was quite a rare beast, being an original slatt-grill "Early" MB. The main problem wasn't the overall condition of the jeep (50%rust, 50%holes), but the fact that someone had tried to rebuilt it as a CJ. The only remaining original parts were the chassis, bodytub, front fenders, hood, window, AC aircleaner and nomenclature-plates (all 3). The engine, gearbox and axles were MB, although probably not early. The rest was gone or CJ (take a look at the restoration pics). Luckely they didn't cut a tailgate in it. |
| The restoration We started to disassemble the jeep, making notes of parts missing. It would have been easier if we made notes of what we DID have. The bodytub turned out to have quite a few holes, and we carefully determined which hole was orginal and which was not. The chassis was in a reasonably good condition, but someone welded a large steel beam on it as a bumper (the kind they build those 60 floor buildings from), so the whole front end of the chassis had to be rebuilt. The tag with the original chassisnumber was gone , but we found a number carved in to the chassis near the left rear tire. The next 2 years of work can be seen on the pics; they speak for themselves. We did the whole restoration by ourselves, in a standard garagebox with a case of standard tools. The only references we had were copies of a number of TM-manuals and of course AAW 1&2. This is our first jeep and I guess we did it the difficult way because it was so incomplete; most "rookies" start with a much easier project. Only the welding was done by a friend of us (he owns the next garagebox; what was easy), and we painted it ourselves with the brush and roller. The biggest problem was how to make this restoration economical attractive. Since there were so much of the original parts gone, we had to determine if the total cost would be under or above the marketvalue of a restored very early production MB. One thing became clear: if we would have to buy all the needed parts from the dealers in The Netherlands, we would be wasting our time. Since we would go to France every year on summerholiday, we searched for jeepdealers there. And we found them; most are located around Paris. Because we were going to Paris a couple of times a year, this was very easy. It turned out that they were cheaper and had far more choice in parts than the Dutch dealers. Imagine a terrain with the size of 4 footballfields full of crates with jeep parts. Courtesy of the French army, which used it's MB's, GPW's and M201's until the 1990's. |
| The end of a journey After 2 long years of work a miracle became slowly visible: a jeep recovered from a near-dead experience and started looking more and more like it was when she was young: a restless warrior. The building-off proces went easy and quick compared to the main part of the restoration. The gearbox received an overhaul, but we didn't touch the engine: it was the only part of the jeep that got some maintenance from the previous owner. It has run fine ever since, thank you. Finally the day came that she passed the great test: a new Dutch title was issued and the jeep was roadlegal now. |
| Today Today the jeep stands in the garage, eagerly waiting to drive us where ever we want to go (even though I'm not a G.I. But hey, that's the age!). However, she is not completly finished and she will probably never be. There a number of small details incorrect, but I'm not going to lose sleep over them. Everytime I have a drive in her, people smile; specially the elderly. Sometimes they even come and tell me how they saw their liberators coming in the same jeeps.Then I know I didn't all the work for myself (I could have restored a MG for the same money) but I've actually tributed in keeping a piece of history preserved for the future generations. One that is worth to preserve, as a monument for those who fought and suffered in WWII and those who didn't live to see the end of it. |
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