That's an insane amount of work. An amazing adventure and a saint of a wife!
I'm wondering if there'll be any follow up:
Thats a lot of metal in the engine oil. Whats the source? is there a fix? or is it just 'breaking in' a new motor?
Did he ever solve the overheating problems?
Did he ever finish the headlights and other small items?
and now what does he do with all the duplicate/spare parts?
I've done a couple extremely high stress road trips, so I fully empathize with him passing out every time he had to pull over. What a fun read; I love these ultra-long-form articles.
The important point is "from as much ebay parts as possible" because I suspect there are still "jeep in a crate" boxes where all you have to do is remove the Cosmolene (this is undoubtedly not all you have to do btw)
There's a long running treasure hunt for some still-crated Spitfires that were supposedly shipped to Burma at the exact end of the war and then buried when no longer required.
The amount of equipment left over from WW2 was staggering.
This is one of those perennial aviation legends[0] that are still alive, like Amelia Earhart's wreck. Always another rich guy funding a search with promising results.
The terms of the lend lease agreement meant that Britain only had to pay for the equipment it kept after the war. So in some cases they were pushing aircraft of the deck of carriers into the sea so they didn’t have to pay for them.
On a slightly newer time scale there are always firearm collectors searching for something impossible to acquire now, but which might have been acquired at some point in the past and squirreled away in its factory original box in the cosmoline. Like somebody who might have purchased an imported Egyptian Maadi AKM (locally made AK47 variant) in 1982, then never unpacked it for whatever reason.
People collect these things just because, almost like pokemon cards, another example would be the rarity of finding a specific year of East German Makarov in pristine/factory new condition.
You can build a Citroën 2CV from scratch with entirely new parts - almost - because someone somewhere makes what you need.
About the only mechanical component you can't buy is the gearbox "bucket", presumably because nobody ever breaks those. You can actually get various gearbox upgrades for them which is worth it if you daily one, because the mainshaft nut can slacken off and get you jammed in gear.
Wonderful project. But alarm bells went off in my head when I saw the picture of the helper, wearing gloves, holding a part to be drilled while the author held the drill centimeters away from the helper's gloved hands. I hope that was just for illustration purposes.
It doesn't set off alarm bells in my head. That bearing material is very soft and easy to drill. clamping it is not simple as it's easy to deform. I would have done the same and went nice and slow starting with a center drill and moving to a standard jobbers afterward.
I wish he shared what it cost him overall. I can already see from some of the numbers and some guesswork that it must not be a flattering sum, but I still want to see it!
Howdy! This is Matt from The Autopian. I talked to David about this and we'll have it for you soon. We've been doing the math and it's kinda hilarious. Obviously, we were proving a point with this video but it's not... the most efficient way to do this.
Another big point of curiosity for me is registration--it clearly doesn't have a CA number plate, but there was a big red "3" on a laminated card in the spare.. what is that?
How do you go about titling and registering a brand new body + frame?
Typically in the US you get a donor firewall from a registerable vehicle that has the VIN plate. This is pretty common for things like civilian jeeps, chevrolet C10 pickups and a few other American cars/trucks that have complete bodies you can buy in the aftermarket.
For military equipment you usually need the original frame (or part of it with stamps) because it has serial numbers stamped on it for the DMV to go by when registering.
Yeah it sounds like they had a rusted out donor vehicle, so they may have been able to get the necessary numbers from it. Will be interesting to read all the details of how they went about it.
You end up with a special "Q" (as in James Bond?) number plate. There's a whole bunch of different processes depending on how Car of Theseus the vehicle is. Apparently this has recently been streamlined for rebuilds of classics from original parts (which is _not_ what the Jeep is). The system is still intended to prevent the re-use of crashed or otherwise written off frames, though.
California has a tradition of being car-friendly. Probably not the first time someone did something like this, and they might have some idea of how to handle it by now.
a decent long form article with pictures, a story, well written, and something of interest. I will read this fully later as it will require some time. Good work!
I can see the appeal, not having to deal with much rust or bolts breaking (the 2 things which cause the most trouble for me in working on vehicles). 800 miles across the desert is some way to run it in though!
That's an insane amount of work. An amazing adventure and a saint of a wife!
I'm wondering if there'll be any follow up:
Thats a lot of metal in the engine oil. Whats the source? is there a fix? or is it just 'breaking in' a new motor?
Did he ever solve the overheating problems?
Did he ever finish the headlights and other small items?
and now what does he do with all the duplicate/spare parts?
I've done a couple extremely high stress road trips, so I fully empathize with him passing out every time he had to pull over. What a fun read; I love these ultra-long-form articles.
"o my god I lob a yeep"
Super article. Something to actually read, great photos. "How I Got Myself In This Predicament" is just the sort of subheading I like to read.
Just like they eventually added to WWII Jeeps, it needs a huge anti-decapitation pole on the front (maybe a really cool (and huge) hood ornament?).
I love the Autopian, glad they're on the HN front page. David Tracy's Jeep antics have kept me up at night worrying for at least 10 years now.
The important point is "from as much ebay parts as possible" because I suspect there are still "jeep in a crate" boxes where all you have to do is remove the Cosmolene (this is undoubtedly not all you have to do btw)
There's a long running treasure hunt for some still-crated Spitfires that were supposedly shipped to Burma at the exact end of the war and then buried when no longer required.
The amount of equipment left over from WW2 was staggering.
This is one of those perennial aviation legends[0] that are still alive, like Amelia Earhart's wreck. Always another rich guy funding a search with promising results.
[0]https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-20957162
My late great uncle was in the RAF during WW2 and was at the liberation of Belson.
I remember him saying that the RAF buried Spitfire engines, so it's definitely a real practice.
The terms of the lend lease agreement meant that Britain only had to pay for the equipment it kept after the war. So in some cases they were pushing aircraft of the deck of carriers into the sea so they didn’t have to pay for them.
On a slightly newer time scale there are always firearm collectors searching for something impossible to acquire now, but which might have been acquired at some point in the past and squirreled away in its factory original box in the cosmoline. Like somebody who might have purchased an imported Egyptian Maadi AKM (locally made AK47 variant) in 1982, then never unpacked it for whatever reason.
People collect these things just because, almost like pokemon cards, another example would be the rarity of finding a specific year of East German Makarov in pristine/factory new condition.
You can build a Citroën 2CV from scratch with entirely new parts - almost - because someone somewhere makes what you need.
About the only mechanical component you can't buy is the gearbox "bucket", presumably because nobody ever breaks those. You can actually get various gearbox upgrades for them which is worth it if you daily one, because the mainshaft nut can slacken off and get you jammed in gear.
> get you jammed in gear
Terrifying prospect. What are your options in that situation? Would turning off the ignition have any effect?
Just stomp the clutch and shut it off
Wonderful project. But alarm bells went off in my head when I saw the picture of the helper, wearing gloves, holding a part to be drilled while the author held the drill centimeters away from the helper's gloved hands. I hope that was just for illustration purposes.
pic: https://images-stag.jazelc.com/uploads/theautopian-m2en/Scre...
Those kids (the autopian team) specialize in generating engagement doing things that are pretty unsafe...
Another example would be the dude who used a chainsaw on some lead acid batteries, for reasons.
https://www.theautopian.com/how-i-used-a-chainsaw-to-remove-...
That dude's also an owner of the company, so maybe giving himself lead poisoning for clicks is worth it?
It doesn't set off alarm bells in my head. That bearing material is very soft and easy to drill. clamping it is not simple as it's easy to deform. I would have done the same and went nice and slow starting with a center drill and moving to a standard jobbers afterward.
I wish he shared what it cost him overall. I can already see from some of the numbers and some guesswork that it must not be a flattering sum, but I still want to see it!
Howdy! This is Matt from The Autopian. I talked to David about this and we'll have it for you soon. We've been doing the math and it's kinda hilarious. Obviously, we were proving a point with this video but it's not... the most efficient way to do this.
Another big point of curiosity for me is registration--it clearly doesn't have a CA number plate, but there was a big red "3" on a laminated card in the spare.. what is that?
How do you go about titling and registering a brand new body + frame?
Typically in the US you get a donor firewall from a registerable vehicle that has the VIN plate. This is pretty common for things like civilian jeeps, chevrolet C10 pickups and a few other American cars/trucks that have complete bodies you can buy in the aftermarket.
For military equipment you usually need the original frame (or part of it with stamps) because it has serial numbers stamped on it for the DMV to go by when registering.
Yeah it sounds like they had a rusted out donor vehicle, so they may have been able to get the necessary numbers from it. Will be interesting to read all the details of how they went about it.
Not OP, but since I looked up the corresponding UK process: https://www.gov.uk/vehicle-approval/individual-vehicle-appro...
You end up with a special "Q" (as in James Bond?) number plate. There's a whole bunch of different processes depending on how Car of Theseus the vehicle is. Apparently this has recently been streamlined for rebuilds of classics from original parts (which is _not_ what the Jeep is). The system is still intended to prevent the re-use of crashed or otherwise written off frames, though.
That was also a fun story! I had to do the insurance for it and CA is actually surprisingly a great state for this kind of stuff.
California has a tradition of being car-friendly. Probably not the first time someone did something like this, and they might have some idea of how to handle it by now.
We'll try to get the price up today or tomorrow and the registration story up next week.
Amazing! Can't wait :)
Is it truly a 2026 car though, if it does not come with an ungodly amount of attention beep nagware that cannot be permanently disabled?
Is it really a 2026 car if it was made in 2026? (New cars in 2026 are manufactured and sold as 2027)
There's a Wheeler Dealers episode where Edd China takes care of a WWII Jeep.
I love that show
a decent long form article with pictures, a story, well written, and something of interest. I will read this fully later as it will require some time. Good work!
I can see the appeal, not having to deal with much rust or bolts breaking (the 2 things which cause the most trouble for me in working on vehicles). 800 miles across the desert is some way to run it in though!
"OmG nO eV?????? BaN aLl CaRs"
Cool, maybe worth it!