Petrolicious – 1953 Willys Jeep CJ-3B – Video
“The adventure began when we left the driveway,” says Larry Shank. “And that’s what was neat about the Jeep and the teardrop; you became part of the country from day one.”
Shank is the proud custodian of this 1953 Willys Jeep CJ-3B and 1947 Ken-Skill Kustom Kamper Model 10, both bought by his father in period and used during their entire lives by his family for exploring the U.S. while on vacation.
Traveling off the beaten path may seem extreme, but he has a different perspective: “You arrive not exhausted but exhilarated; because you’re already there, you’re already on vacation…”
His father taught him how to drive the Jeep and fix the Jeep, and set up camp; their relationship was close and unique, he says. For his father, vacations were a way to reconnect with nature after months at a demanding job at Lockheed.
“You could not go the places he wanted to go unless you had this. There were dirt roads, sandy roads, where a normal car would not make it,” Shank says. “The Jeep could get him every place he wanted to go.”
Even today, Shank’s Jeep explores wherever his son wants to go.
About (1953-1964) Willys CJ-3B
CJ-3B Production Total: 196,000 (155,494 assembled in the U.S.)
(Public sales end in 1964 as far as we can tell – however CJ-3Bs were still available for commercial / military markets until 1968)
Illustration – CJ3B
CJ-3B Illustration
The Universal Jeep CJ-3B was first produced by Willys-Overland in 1953, following closely in the footsteps of its 1/4 ton predecessors, the CJ-2A and CJ-3A, civilian models mostly targeted to agricultural and industrial applications. With the close of WWII, Willys-Overland began to promote the CJs as civilian models that stretched beyond the scope of the militarized MB, pitched as “all-purpose” vehicles in ads of the time, first with the CJ-2A in 1945, followed by an updated but still very similar version (CJ-3A) from 1949 – 1953, and then with the more significantly modified CJ-3B from 1953-1964.
In the same year that the CJ-3B was introduced, Willys-Overland was sold to the Kaiser-Frazer Corporation, who adopted the Willys Motors name until 1964. The CJ-3B, a transitional model that narrowed the gap between the CJ and M38-A1, while similar in many ways to the 2A and 3A, had one major difference: the new F-Head Hurricane engine, which delivered more horsepower, but demanded a higher hood, a structural feature that also distinguished it from earlier CJs. The new Hurricane engine delivered a marked improvement in performance, with larger intake valves in the head and increased fuel economy. While historical information about CJ-3Bs seems more difficult to obtain than other CJs, they remain part of the flat-fender family even today, as some variants are still produced under license from Willys by India’s Mahindra and Mahindra.