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1944 Ford GPW Jeep FINISHED!


Art Anderson

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Nice build.

The first crossmember was the main difference between the Ford GPW and the Willys Jeep. The first Fords also had a stamped Ford sign on the lower left rear (where the Jerry can was) and on top of the two flaps a the rear fenders. On the late ones this was deleted.

And all screw hats had the Ford sign embossed in it. Don't forget the VIN plate on the dashboard.

The 1/24 Italeri Willys Jeep is in fact a Ford GPW. The chassis has the press steel crossmember

 

 

Edited by carsntrucks4you
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Nice build.

The first crossmember was the main difference between the Ford GPW and the Willys Jeep. The first Fords also had a stamped Ford sign on the lower left rear (where the Jerry can was) and on top of the two flaps a the rear fenders. On the late ones this was deleted.

And all screw hats had the Ford sign embossed in it. Don't forget the VIN plate on the dashboard.

The 1/24 Italeri Willys Jeep is in fact a Ford GPW. The chassis has the press steel crossmember

 

 

In 1944, there was no such thing as a VIN (Vehicle Identification Number) on US built motor vehicles--rather American -built and registered motor vehicles were identified by their engine number.   In researching this model, yes, many Jeeps (and I assume other US military vehicles as well from the time periiod) had a number of ID tags riveted to the instrument panel--but it appears those were added after manufacture and delivery to the military (US Army in the case of this Jeep), so I didn't use them.  I was aware that the Italeri  WW-II Jeep is a Ford GPW, and while I do like Italeri kits in general, it is an older kit, with a few features I didn't like--most notably the tires being molded as part of the wheel halves.

Art

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Nice Jeep.

The 3-piece riveted together wheels are rather incorrect for most GPWs and MBs. But not for ALL of them. MOST that you see in old movies and war photos had the more common 2-piece wheels. Italeri used the same wheels as Hasegawa but got the hubs wrong. MPC got the centers more correct, but with 15" rims and wrong tires.

My best man of 35 years ago owns a 1942 GPW that I took him to buy in 1975. It was mostly stock then other than the wheels and a Buick V6 engine. He still has it. A little more modified now 42 years later. The unit ID on it represents his dad's USAAF B24 bomber group unit stationed in England during WW2. Vic's was originally a Navy Jeep. In prepping it for a re-paint in the late 70s, we found it had a couple of layers of paint over the original Navy gray against the metal. It has the ID tag on the right side of the dash as mentioned above. I wouldn't call it a "VIN" tag, but it DOES ID the particular vehicle in much the same way. The number on that tag is on the CA registration.

Jeep_1942GPW_VicBurton_2015-7-7_0292.jpg

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Nice Jeep.

The 3-piece riveted together wheels are rather incorrect for most GPWs and MBs. But not for ALL of them. MOST that you see in old movies and war photos had the more common 2-piece wheels. Italeri used the same wheels as Hasegawa but got the hubs wrong. MPC got the centers more correct, but with 15" rims and wrong tires.

My best man of 35 years ago owns a 1942 GPW that I took him to buy in 1975. It was mostly stock then other than the wheels and a Buick V6 engine. He still has it. A little more modified now 42 years later. The unit ID on it represents his dad's USAAF B24 bomber group unit stationed in England during WW2. Vic's was originally a Navy Jeep. In prepping it for a re-paint in the late 70s, we found it had a couple of layers of paint over the original Navy gray against the metal. It has the ID tag on the right side of the dash as mentioned above. I wouldn't call it a "VIN" tag, but it DOES ID the particular vehicle in much the same way. The number on that tag is on the CA registration.

Jeep_1942GPW_VicBurton_2015-7-7_0292.jpg

The "riveted" wheels you mention are correct for a WW-II Jeep. They were in two halves, inner and outer, and BOLTED together, not riveted.  That was for easier tire changes "in the field".  As for the MPC Jeep, it is NOT a WW-II vehicle, but rather a postwar civilian jeep (CJ-2A), which was produced with more conventional steel disc wheels.  A lot of confusion exists over the label on the original MPC box--"Hogan's Heroes", which was a sitcom set during World War II, in Germany.  However, MPC chose to model a CJ-2A with those conventional civilian steel wheels.  But it gets more interesting:

As the Korean Conflict ramped up (including the start of the so-called "Cold War", the US Army was hard-pressed to find enough serviceable WW--II era Jeeps (Military Jeep production ended a full 5 yrs before the start of the Korean Conflict in the summer of 1950.  By early 1951 the need for more Jeeps was critical.  Willys-Overland was contracted to produce a "re-militarized Jeep, this time adapted from the CJ-2A:  The M-38 Jeep.   The M-38 retained all the CJ-2A revisions, including flush-mounted headlights (MB's and GPW's had their headlights mounted BEHIND the grille panel), along with the Ford-designed 7-slot stamped grille (Ford is credited with the development of that grille (albeit with 9-slots) that replaced the original Bantam/Willys welded steel bar grille (1940-41). The TV Sitcom M*A*S*H used both MB/GPW  AND Willys M-38's in their show, sometimes in the same episode (Check out the TV Cable Channel "TV LAND", every day--several episodes are rerun daily)  In 1954, the then-newly constituted Kaiser-Willys began delivery of the M38A2, the first "round-nosed" Jeep, to US and NATO forces (with a split windshield) that for 1955, evolved into the much-better-known civilian CJ-5.

As for the data plates depicted by decals in both the Italeri and Hasegawa 1/24 scale WW-II  Jeeps, I could find NO documentation that those were indeed applied at the factory at the time of manufacture.  Therefore, in my quest to do a model of a car that could have "come off the assembly line" on the same day (July 12,1944) that I was born, I chose to leave those off. (In this case, it's a matter of either a "sin of omission or a sin of commission".

Art

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