Jeeps And Their Followers….

….and I mean that literally.  My name is Mike and I grew up around Jeeps. I’ve had  had a passion for them from an early age.  For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to do my wheelin’ with an old “WWII” Jeep trailer in tow.  A trip many years ago with the late Tom Davis sealed the deal for me. Tom had outfitted his old Jeep trailer with a kitchen and bunks and water tanks and a gas tank with fuel lines running to his old flattie.      tom davis

You can read more about Tom’s rig in this Four Wheeler Magazine article.

I was also inspired by a regular on the trail rides of my youth,  Neil Smith of the Smittybilt family.  Neil and Tom, along with fellow members of the Chuckwalla Jeep Club pioneered the surplus jeep trailer camping rig.  Neil had a 40’s era 4WD Willys VJ Jeepster that I admired a lot, but his primary desert  rig back in the late 1980’s/90’s  was a Porsche powered Volkswagen Thing (it obviously had some sweet custom fabbed bumpers and roll cage) with a matching trailer made out of the back half of another Thing.  It sported a license plate frame that read “One Thing After Another.” 

I found my ’46 Bantam T3-C for sale with enough spray paint covering it to see it through the 3 years it sat beside the house awaiting this make-over.  It’s the first year of the civilian version of the military 1/4 ton MB-T’s and T3’s  made by Willys and American Bantam that saw duty in WWII.  For all the info about Bantam Trailers you could ever want to know, click the link.  The biggest difference between the army and civvie versions is the latter came with a tailgate and without shocks.  Lot’s of WWII Army trailers eventually had homemade tailgates as they were sold as surplus and used stateside.  The military trailers were built watertight in order to float but that made it hard to load ’em with farming, ranching or camping supplies.

I’ve had this trailer build in my head for a long time.  I recently dug up this drawing that I did 26 years ago.     jeepdrawing.jpg

I may never own the CJ6 I conjured up here, but I got the trailer.  I chronicled my project’s  progress for those who may be interested in a similar set up.  Click “posts” to see how it was done and what it resulted in.