A car from the year (very nearly the month too!) when I came off the assembly line.

[Art Anderson]

No civilian vehicles were produced in 1944--not with WW-II at its crescendo, but this one does qualify as a car in my book, even though the US Army classified it as a "Truck, 4-wheel drive, 1/4 ton".  If you haven't guessed, that would be a Jeep!

Pretty much, everyone thinks of the Jeep as having originated with Willys-Overland, but that would be wrong:  The Jeep, as it came to be produced, actually began life as the Bantam Reconnaisance Car (BRC) which was the design accepted by the US Army over prototypes submitted by both Willys and Ford.  American Bantam produced 1,500 BRC's in 1940 for the Army, but that company's small size and rather shakey financial condition prompted the Army to award further production to Willys-Overland of Toledo Ohio.  Willys produced several thousand Jeeps in 1941, but again, the small size and capacity of that company meant they could not begin to meet the demand with the aftermath of Pearl Harbor--so Ford was given a contract to produce the very same vehicle under liicense from Willys.  While Ford produced the vast majority of Jeeps in WW-II (some 670,000 were built), most people (and historians)  tend to think only of the Willys MB, not the Ford GPW--which is readily identifiable if one knows where to look for the difference:   While Willys provided first, raw Jeep chassis to Ford, the latter company's engineers figured they could speed up production with a design change--Willys (like Bantam before them) used a tubular front crossmember in the frame, which apparently Ford saw as a bit of a bottleneck, so Ford's designers substituted a pressed-steel channel front crossmember, which is readily visible, both from underneath, and through the 7-slot stamped grille (which was developed at Ford to replace the welded steel slat grille used by Bantam and carried forward by Willys for the earliest Jeeps.  Willys-Overland provided all the engines for Jeep production, the Willys"Go-Devil" flathead 4, which had been created for the 1927 Willys Whippet, and then used in the 1933-36 Willys Model 77's and 1937-41 Willys Americar both of Gasser drag racing fame.   American Central Manufacturing of Connersville IN (formerly Auburn Central Mfg--who produced the sheet metal stampings for Auburns and Cords) stamped and assembled the bodies for both Willys & Ford..  OK, enough ado about the history--on to my project:

[Art Anderson]

Well, so much for the vaunted accuracy of a Hasegawa kit!  While this model kit is pretty amazing in most all of its details, they did miss molding sparkplugs into the cylinder head!   When researching Jeep engines for both paint colors and detailing, I had come across a picture of a freshly restored rebuild, that had yet to have plugs installed--rather the rebuilder had inserted orange plastic seals into the sparkplug holes to keep dirt and debris out--Hasegawa must have seen the same picture, as THAT's what they tooled into the cylinder head.  No problem, as I have a pretty fair stock of OOP R&D Unique white metal spark plugs.  Only trouble is, a #61 drill bit is too small for the size of the shank on the bottom of these plugs--thankfullly I have this long, 1/8" shank tapered HS steel cutter, which when fitted into a pin-vise allowed me to gently enlarge the drilled holes:

 

[Foxer]

Great build idea and the war jeep info is interesting.

But, what I really want is one of those tapered HS steel cutters!! 

[Erik Smith]

Hasegawa or Asuka?

 

[Art Anderson]

Hasegawa or Asuka?

 

It's the Hasegawa kit.  Asuka made the Bantam BRC kit.

[1930fordpickup]

I need to watch this one. My grandfather worked at the Toledo Willys plant during the war. One of the things  regret is never asking more questions about that time when he was still with us. 

 

[Art Anderson]

Great build idea and the war jeep info is interesting.

But, what I really want is one of those tapered HS steel cutters!! 

I found the tapered cutter at a tool vendor's booth at the Auburn Auction Grounds (Auburn IN) about 7-8 years ago--wish I'd bought more than one!).  It's essentially useless in a Dremel, due to it's shape and length, but I have used it in my Sherline Mill, to get a slanted edge on a block of aluminum that I occasionally use for block-sanding.  It was, however, VERY handy for the little job I put it to on the Jeep engine!

Art