Jeepers Creepers

Where'd you get those Jeepsters? The Larz Anderson Auto Museum in Brookline, Massachusetts, got them through its Collector Car Program, where donated cars are sold to help finance museum operations and recycle cars back to the enthusiast community.

This 1949 car is from the first Jeepster generation, 1948-50. Originally powered with the 134 cubic inch "Go Devil" engine from the Universal Jeep, the Jeepster got an optional six-cylinder engine in '49. This Jeepster is unusual, however, for it has four-wheel drive.

Four-wheel drive Jeepsters didn't regularly appear until the second generation, the Jeepster Commando of 1967. The Commando, based on the CJ-6 chassis, came in four body styles, roadster, station wagon, pickup and convertible. Power came from the F-head Willys Hurricane Four, and a Dauntless V6, adopted from Buick, was optional. In the transition period from Kaiser to American Motors ownership, AMC engines were substituted, and the V6 was eventually sold back to General Motors. The Jeepster, later simply "Commando", was discontinued after 1973. This Jeepster Commando is a 1967 model with the V6 and automatic transmission (the bulletproof Turbo 400 Hydra-Matic). It is not pristine, but is an unusual vehicle that would make a nice project. The Museum is asking $2,500 for it; contact Collector Car Program Manager Andy Jeffrey if it appeals to you.

The '49 Jeepster has already been sold, but what about that four-wheel drive? My explanation is that someone transplanted the Jeepster body onto the chassis of a 1954 Willys four-wheel drive station wagon. The Jeepster and wagon wheelbases differ by a mere half-inch. There must have been some interference, though, for the pedal arrangement is quite peculiar.

Both first and second generation Jeepsters have constituencies. There are at least two clubs for the early Jeepsters, the Willys-Overland Jeepster Club in Massachusetts and the Midstates Jeepster Association in Michigan. The American Jeepster Club caters to the needs of Jeepster Commando owners. Their website has a wealth of information on both the Kaiser and AMC models.

Keep on Truckin'

Wayne's World, which comprises most of central Texas, is rife with hibernating cars, and Wayne, who runs it, knows where to find them. This time, with help from long-time area resident Phillip Koch, he's come up with a whale of a stake truck. Everything is so specialized now that few people not living on farms have even heard of stake trucks. But there's nothing so versatile as a stake truck because you can configure the business end any way you want. Wayne found this 1933 Dodge H30 ton-and-a-half stake truck in Castell, Texas. It's been dormant for forty years, but protected, so it's a solid and unmolested, if well-used, vehicle.

Dodge trucks of the 1933-35 period are interesting because they embraced the styling cues of Dodge passenger cars. Many manufacturers aped cars with their pickups, but not many extended this to big trucks. For Dodge, this was a sea change. Dodge trucks had always been upright and square. For many years, what served as a Dodge truck had been made by the Graham Brothers, with Dodge engines, and sold through Dodge dealers. Walter Chrysler absorbed the Graham Bros. truck business in stages, and the brothers took over the Paige-Detroit Motor Car Company in quest of making Graham-Paiges. Although the trucks were thereafter badged as Dodges, they remained upright through 1932.

The 1933 trucks changed all that, even to the extent of cabs with suicide doors, perhaps unique in the truck world (tell us if this is not so). In 1936, though, the Fore-Point cab pulled Dodge out of its slouch and made the doors open at the rear again.

This Dodge has been staked for tall loads - I said stake trucks were versatile. Its bed is weathered but sound, the cab is littered but sturdy, and the speedometer shows something south of 36,000 miles. The engine is the same 201.3 cubic inch six as used in Dodge cars, and it rides on Budd wheels, whose tires look like they may hold air.

The owner, whose father bought it new, will entertain offers. If you'd like to make one, contact the CarPort, which can channel you through to Wayne's World.

The Wayward Bus

John Steinbeck was a car guy. We know that from his novels - how else would he have been able to make automobiles such realistic characters? His word pictures of Lincoln-Zephyr, Hudson and Dodge touring car in The Grapes of Wrath, and the Model T Fords in Cannery Row and East of Eden demonstrate that he knew whereof he wrote. Thus it comes as a bit of disappointment that the title character of The Wayward Bus (1947, a film version starring Joan Collins and Jayne Mansfield was made in 1957) serves merely as a vehicle for keeping his characters in conflict with one another.

This could almost have been Steinbeck's wayward bus. It's an Aerocoach Mastercraft P372, a type built from 1948 to 1952. The Mastercraft was Aerocoach's intercity bus; other Aerocoach models were a transit bus and the Astraview sightseeing model with a glass roof. Aerocoach was made by the General American Transportation Corporation of East Chicago, Illinois. Not to be confused with AM General LLC, one-time bus builder and now manfucturer of HMMWVs and Hummers, General American took over the bus business of Gar Wood Industries in 1939. The Aerocoaches were an entirely new design with tubular body frame, introduced late in 1940. Much rarer than the familiar GM/Greyhound "Silversides," or even the long-gone ACF Brills, fewer than 3,100 Aerocoaches were built before General American ceased operations. Most Aerocoaches were powered by International engines, some of them diesels. This one has been repowered with a GM engine, the ubiquitous 6-71 diesel.

Bruce Fullerton discovered this Aerocoach in Austin, Texas, recently. It's presently stored at Burnet Road Self Storage, but the owner, who apparently used it as a band bus, is behind on his rent. It's in decent shape, resplendent in acres of stainless steel and has those funky arrow turn signals. Imagine your friends seeing it drive down the street with you in the pilot house, your name on the marquee. Just think how the groupies will follow you.

By the time you read this, it may not be a wayward bus, but it could well be a homeless bus, or even a dismembered bus. It's currently under threat of eviction - if you think you might be able to rescue it call Kathy at Burnet Road Storage, 512-453-6302. If it has departed the premises, you will have to contact the Austin Police Department, where Kimberly or Tammy in the Abandoned Vehicle Section, 512-280-0075, may be able to help you. An Aerocoach this rare deserves another flight.

We Do Windows

You've seen this car before. It was in the way when Wayne Graefen went to retrieve "Ivy," his 1932 Plymouth convertible sedan. At last report, it was still sitting in the same Southern California rest home for old automobiles. Wayne notes that it's the convertible coupe style without side windows for the rear passengers.

That set me to thinking. When did rear side windows appear in convertibles and why? I think I know why (better view for the back seat crowd), but it took a bit of research to figure out when. In the beginning, of course, there were was no reason for the windows, as back seat passengers rode outdoors. With the advent of the indoor back seat, the convertible's top was merely extended to cover them. These '37 Fords illustrate the difference.

The first convertibles to use side windows as we now know them, winding down into the side walls, were the "big" Mopar makes, Dodge, DeSoto and Chrysler in 1941. Plymouth, however, continued to use the "blind" style top that year, and right on through 1948. (Dodge devotees will remind us of the Wayfarer, the 1949- 1950 three-passenger roadster, that of course needed no rear windows. Curiouser was this three-passenger Chrysler Town & Country convertible, apparently advertised but perhaps never built?

Ford Motor Company makes made the switch in 1942, including the Lincoln-Zephyr but excepting the Continental, whose blind quarters were a styling feature and continued through to 1948.

As it turns out, our feature car was the last of its breed, as Pontiac, with all of the other GM brands, installed rear windows for 1942.

You might ask, "What's the big deal about those windows? Why didn't everybody start using them at the same time?" Well, there's more to them than meets the eye. In order to make them retract it's necessary to re-engineer the whole body, providing space for the window when it's down and a lowering mechanism that pivots the glass so as to obviate a center pillar. The independent manufacturers, understandably, took longer to put this into practice. Packard continued their blind quarters through 1942, then built no convertibles at all in 1946 or '47. The first "rear-side-window" Packard convertibles came with the "Pregnant Elephant" models starting in 1948. Studebaker, curiously, offered no convertible coupes in the late 1930s; the last pre-war open cars were the convertible sedans of 1938 and '39. Post-war, the first convertible was the 1947 model. Nash took even longer. The blind quarter style, like this '39, re-appeared in 1948 with Nash's first postwar convertible, then disappeared again. The next Nash convertible was the 1950 Rambler, whose side windows didn't disappear at all. The first "Nash product" with "conventional" side windows was the 1961 Rambler American convertible.

Hudson's approach to windows was evolutionary. In 1937, Hudson offered two types of convertibles, the "Convertible Coupe" with blind quarters, and the "Convertible Brougham" with rear side windows (Terraplane models shown). The single rear passenger in the Convertible Coupe rode sideways. The Brougham evaded the engineering problems of the windows by making them part of the top, a sort of side curtain that was removable when the top went down. Starting in 1941, you could order Hudson convertibles with or without glass rear side windows. The rear windows did not crank down, however, they lowered with the top. This arrangement prevailed until 1947. Lest we think Hudson incomparably clever, however, I remind you that Bantam had a similar option in 1940.

If you'd like to rescue that '41 Pontiac Deluxe Torpedo Six, the CarPort can put you in touch. It comes complete with bees in the side pocket.

Spare the Rod

Last month we spent a weekend in upstate New York, cheering our daughter Harriet as she competed in the second annual Musselman Triathlon at Geneva. The thought of running 13 miles after swimming for over a mile and biking for 56 boggles the mind, but she finished in good, if not record, time.

It was not supposed to be an automotive weekend, but interesting cars have a way of turning up. No sooner had we arrived in Syracuse, our overnight stop, than we noticed all sorts of intriguing vehicles around. It seems we had landed in the midst of the Syracuse Nationals. Judging from the nature of the traffic I figured it was a street rod festival, but there's more to it than that, including bikes, trucks and muscle cars.

I'm not a fancier of modified cars, per se, but I'm always interested in what people do and how they do it - rods and modified cars usually embody exemplary craftsmanship and often innovative engineering. Wayne Graefen tells me that early hemis are "really hot," and this one took pride of place under the hood of a '37 Ford coupe. Early Fords like this chopped Model A still seem to be the rods of choice; the owners of this one trekked from Massachusetts, so they brought their luggage trailer. Some cars, like this '40 Chevy, were tastefully bright; others, like this one, were quite radical. Front or rear it gave little clue to its heritage until I looked at the dashboard, which gave it away as a 1949 or '50 Dodge. But this Mopar, which, to my mind, should have had a hemi, was propelled by the all-too-common small block Chevy V8.

Sleeper of the day was this 1936 Ford phaeton. But for the color, it had hardly a hair out of place. The only sign of modification I could find was these auxiliary gauges, and I still don't know if they monitor the original flathead or a more modern powerplant.

It was an interesting weekend, but it has not inspired me to come home and build a street rod. It has, however, convinced me that Freightliner builds my kind of pickup.