What’s your first Jeep memory?

Thought this would be a fun little post. Just post up your first Jeep memory.


My first Jeep memory would be my mom buckling me up in my Dads Red CJ to drop me off at my Grandmothers. I remember it was kind of cold out and his had no sort of top at all.

The clearest early memory that I have is that of the white CJ that was parked behind my childhood home every day, in the employee parking lot for the adjacent grocery store.

While the Jeep was nice enough, I noticed it primarily because the owner had traded his 240Z to purchase the CJ. The former is what I really liked; its absence is functionally what drew my eyes to its replacement.

Years later, in my early adulthood, I was fortunate enough to own both a Z car and a new YJ. So, call it an old memory that came full circle.

Well, some things never change

2nd 392 said:

Well, some things never change

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That’s funny. I had a Jeep Power Wheel as a kid. It always makes me think of the song PickUp Man. The little girl next door would always ride around the houses with me lol.

Back in the 80's, white CJ, bikini top on headed to Santa Cruz Beach. To be young again!

When I was 9 or 10 I used to go fishing on weekends with my aunt and uncle. They fished the local beaches and those on Cape Cod. I still fish the beaches today. This is not a picture of their Jeep but is identical to theirs.

Phantom01231 said:

That’s funny. I had a Jeep Power Wheel as a kid. It always makes me think of the song PickUp Man. The little girl next door would always ride around the houses with me lol.

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I never really had a pedal Nellybelle . Just grew up with Dad’s and his friends Jeeps, taught to drive it when I could reach the pedals, allowed to drive it with a license until I got my first car. His #2 great grandson loves it and can’t wait to drive it, the oldest grandson wasn’t interested.

As a kid the local concrete precast company had a bunch of Jeeps that were used to install curbings. I am not positive but I think they were all WW2 surplus. They could install large sections of curbing in a very short time. They were set up like this:

Around the age of 5, drove with my father and grandfather about 100 miles each way to pick up an Willys. Raining, some sort of soft top that let in more rain than it kept out, only one wiper which didn't work. I thought the Jeep was pretty cool because it had a radio destruction box bolted on the dash, where you pressed the buttons on each side of the box simultaneously to blow up the radio. No radio at that point but it had been bolted to the back corner. It had the space down the side for the shovel so that could make it a CJ2 but it might have been a MB given it clearly had seen military use. (Don't really know my history that well). Was never road legal - you'd have to ask my father about that aspect. Had been re-engined with some sort of 4 cylinder engine - I think out of a Ford Zephyr. Eventually learnt to drive it around the age of 12.

looking through my dad's special tin container of old photographs when I was snooping around...it is also the reason I had motorcycle oil running through veins

Very cool, thanks for sharing!

1966 Fort Knox running the off road course in an army jeep. I had the fastest time. Wrecked the universals
Had to pay for them. $18. And they tried to give me an article 15. lol.

Believe it or not, there were 2 military YJ Wranglers near me for sale in the 90's. I drooled over them and have never seen another like them.

This is my first Jeep so I don’t go far back as some of you guys, but my first core memory is taking my 2020 Jeep JLUR stock with dealer plates to the closest badge of honor trails 3 days after I bought it.

I luckily lived in Portland and Cedar Tree #13 was not too far away…

tl;dr - i grew up in a jeep dealership, and everything related to that was a major influence in my life

My dad was a sales manager for a (throwback) Chrysler Plymouth Jeep Eagle dealership when I was born / a kid. At the time, my mom drove a grand wagoneer they'd taken in on trade. So, I can't even tell you my earliest jeep memories lol - somewhere between riding in that wagoneer or my dad picking me up from school sometimes and taking me back to work for a couple hours (to do homework or just hang out in the back office or an empty office til 6 or so) where I 'grew up' in a jeep dealership.

He worked at that dealer and a different CJDR dealer over the next ~18-20 years, I spent a lot of time in both over the years, overheard or saw all kinds of stuff, did the CD-i sales training a few times after I'd done homework or when I didn't have anything else to do, hung out with the F&I guy my dad was friends with, etc.

At ~14 I got to be a porter 1 or 2 evenings a week and on Saturdays my dad worked, got paid $5/h cash and it was awesome - got a bit of money, got to hang out in the shop, etc. Didn't drive anything of course, mostly washed cars and cleaned the shop.

At 16 I got to do more porter stuff, got on the actual payroll (6.75 or 6.85, somewhere in that ballpark), was allowed to drive things, helped with deliveries since the soft top process was 2nd nature to me at this point; did more of that and less shop cleaning. Got to work more in the summer and such since I could get there on my own. Ran some dealer trades, which were paid by mile and way more $/h than hourly porter work. Did this until the end of high school. My car at the time, my first, was an XJ they'd taken on trade and we got wholesale (yes, I realize I was very fortunate for a lot of this, but it also wasn't anything crazy). I had it for ~200k miles and 11 years. I miss it and would buy it back in a heartbeat if I could find it.

Through college, I worked at a couple other dealers - Lexus and Acura. I had a decent dealer resume at this point, so I had steady porter, detail bay, parts dept work. I also picked up some maintenance work on the side / helped some mechanincs with after-hours cash jobs.

So much more to these memories and experiences too. I really miss the atmosphere and all the people. Lots of characters, especially on the sales side, and lots of great people that were hard workers, taught me a lot, and who I hung out with outside of work (more on the porter / shop / service drive side). Fair share of assholes and crazies too, of course. Lots of shit-talking. Witnessed (as a bystander lol) some funny fights.

I didn't own a jeep for a long time after that XJ (though I spent time around them), and honestly this 24 Willys is mildly disappointing in a number of ways, especially based on price and comparison to other vehicles I've owned recently, but I try not to let my nostalgia affect my opinion of it. Its fine, really.

An XJ from Davis Auto or something is hopefully in my future, but I don't know when that might be. Hopefully they're still a thing in ~10 or so years.