What's It Worth? 1951 Willys CJ2A ...The Value Of Rust
If ever there is a vehicle that says Made in the USA it is the tried and true Willys-Jeep. Produced to be an agile, rugged and reliable war time transportation the Iconic Willy-Jeep was indeed one of the reasons we won World War II.
Much to the dismay of Uncle Adolf and despite Uber German Ego the Axis powers were never able to produce anything that came even close to the Willys game changing simple but brilliant design.
By the end of 1944 with WWII winding down Willys was planning the future with bringing the Jeep to the civilian population. The first prototype the CJ-1 (CJ stood for Civilian Jeep) rolled off the production line. None of these were offered for sale to the public and with record keeping feeble at best nobody knows for sure how many were produced.
By late 1945 the first CJ-2 were semi-officially offered for sale to the public. By "Semi" it meant they were known as "Agri-Jeeps" Only offered to agriculture and farming areas. They still had the legendary Willy Flathead Go-Devil 4 Cylinder Engine but were stripped of military only items. They also featured tailgates and one of the Luxury features. Only a handful of the CJ2 were produced and even less still survive
The first Willys-Jeep fully offered to a Vehicle Lusting Public was the CJ2-A. Essentially a warmed over CJ2 the "A" featured provision for a soft top and a side mounted spare. Willys would re-name the Go-Devil Engine the Hurricane to distance it from sounding still miltary. Also wanting to spiff things up Willys offered a wide choice of bold colors like Harvest Red and Autumn Yellow. It seemed to work and the Happy Whimsical nature of Jeeps still are part of there charm today. Produced between 1945-1949 Willys sold 214,760 CJ2-A's.
Our feature 1951 Willys-Jeep CJ2-A (Yes we said 1951?) is in fact a late 1949 series. Perhaps thru the decades and loss of title it became re-issued as a 1951. Our feature CJ2-A is crusty, rusty and oozing with Patina has only 22k miles on it. It runs and drives superb. The Hurricane 4 purrs like a Swiss Watch and gets thumbs up everyplace it goes. Willys-Jeeps values have skyrocketed the last few years. Fully restored they can command 25K. So the question what is a more fun than a Barrel Full Of Monkey crusty but trusty go anyplace driver worth? WHAT'S IT WORTH?