At first glance, this #Jeep, seen at last month’s @bringatrailer cars & coffee looks like an ordinary #CJ5 - but Jeep fans will easily notice that many details aren’t right for a CJ-5 - the hood, the door cut, the 5-slot grill, lots of stuff. That’s because it isn’t a CJ-5 at all, but a DJ-5A - best remembered as the boxy #PostalJeep that, in the 1960s and 1970s, was a standard mail carrier all over the U.S. and remained in service into the 1990s. - The DJ (Dispatcher Jeep) line evolved alongside the CJ, but DJs were right hand drive (for easily mail delivery) and two wheel drive (to save weight and mechanical complexity). They were cheaper to manufacture than bespoke items like the proposed “Sit or Stand Van” that the USPS had tried. The USPS first looked at Willys Jeeps in 1953, and the first DJ-3s rolled off the line in 1955, by which time Willys-Overland had been bought by Kaiser. - DJs were basic - equipped with a boxy steel shell designed for ferrying around mail and little else. In 1964, Kaiser bought the old Studebaker factory in South Bend, Indiana, and shortly thereafter, it’s “General Products” (read Government Contract business) moved to South Bend, including the DJ. - AMC’s acquisition of Kaiser-Jeep in 1970 meant spinning off “general products” into #AMGeneral, a wholly-owned subsidiary that just built government contract vehicles - including the DJ. AM General was spun off entirely when Renault took a controlling stake in AMC in 1982, but not before a decade of building loads and loads of Postal Jeeps with various #AMC powerplants indlucing AMC’s own sixes (The grill of the DJ-5A was moved forward to accommodate the I-6) as well as various AMC and "supplied" fours. - Postal Jeeps were the barest of bare bones vehicles, but they were reliable and for many years they were available ridiculously cheap - ripe for modification and sharing many regular Jeep parts. This particular one has had the entire enclosed cab removed except for the A-pillar and windshield. It’s built in the style of the earlier Jeep Surrey, a brightly hued runabout meant for resorts. Inside there’s a picture of it’s original configuration next to its AM General build plate. (at The Shop) https://www.instagram.com/p/BpuoiNvlX1Y/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=lv29igg8qy33
