So that's what those are for

At the Willy's Fall Reunion, there were a couple of restored M38A1's on display that I snapped some pictures of. I finally got to see what some of the real purposes of the various body indents were really designed for.

The one I was most curious about was the indent over the rear wheels. I had always heard that it was for the soft top bows, but it was never clear on how they would be used. Here are a few pics



And the indent on the passenger front cowl, which was for an electrical outlet


Jim

 

The third pic is of the "slave receptacle". Basically a place where you hook up jumper cables.

 

Could that slave receptacle be used for jump-starting other 24v vehicles, like aircraft? So they could use the Jeep as an auxiliary power unit in a pinch?

 

Theoretically, I guess.

Those receptacles are now standardized across NATO, so any NATO ground unit can (in theory) jump another. The cables and receptacles are built so it is (theoretically) impossible to reverse polarity and screw something up. Pretty neat, actually!

 

What I want to know is, what happened to all those M38A1's? I mean, there had to be thousands of them in all the branches of the military when they went over to Hummers, so where are they?

 

Actually the Hummer replaced the M151 Mutt, which came into service in the mid-60's. So the M38A1 has been out of service around 40 years. Most of the 151's are cut in half by Uncle Sam because they're deemed unroadworthy and unsafe at any speed. Don't know where all the M38A1's wound up but I bet some are still in service in various armies around the world.

 

Is the M151 the model with the sideways grill slats? Is that also the Jeep model I've heard about with the independent suspension that was so dangerous?

I just have to wonder if Uncle has a stash of A1's rotting somewhere.

 

I heard the only way you could get a M151 from the salvage house was in pieces due to their rollover history.

 

There were a few M151s that slipped through the cracks intact in various ways. There have also been a few entrepenurial companies that have created whole new vehicles from the mountains of parts from demilled M151s. Carolina Growler is one of them:

www.carolinagrowler.com

 

We still had M151s in 1991 when I was a Sgt with the grunts in Hawaii. Last ones we had went away around 93 as I recall. I remember seeing info somewhere that the rear independent suspension on early models had a tendency to let the vehicle roll at higher speeds. A redesign made the later ones safer.

I personally don't consider them part of the Jeep family. They were built be Ford. Sure, so was the GPW, but to basically the same specs as the Willys, so that still counts.

 

So, back to my original question....what happened to all the M38A1's? Seems like there should be lots of those running around out here somewhere.

 

I have heard stories of them piled up in stacks of 20 or so rotting away. that might be the M151 that I am thinking of though.

 

Back when I was a sprout, the M38A1s could be had at surplus. I worked for Brian Chuchua then, and he would regularly buy military surplus. He had several M38A1s and M170s in his back lot when the dealership was in Fullerton. This was, say, 1970 and '71, back when I could drive but couldn't afford a Jeep. Most of the M38A1s that went to GSA auction by that time were in sad shape - incomplete, banged up, picked over. Lots of them went to the interdepartmental auctions and were bought by state and local government agencys and their affiliates. The local Boy Scout reservation got some that way - on the condition that they could not sell them. Jeeps that went that route still show up for sale today...

 

My M38A1 was once owned by the city of Kalamazoo, MI. Also back in high school I worked at a county park that had 2 of them along with 2 M170's and some sort of 6 wheeled military dump truck. I guess they were able to get them all for $1 each or something like that.

From what I've seen only 100,000 M38A1's were manufactured compared to over 600,000 CJ5's.

 

Well that's interesting. Kevin lives in Wisconsin and has an M38a1 that belonged to a city in Michigan. I'm in Michigan and own an M38a1 that belonged to a municipality in Wisconsin! Go figure.

Don

 

I love this place. Always learnin. I always thought that round depression on the side was where one of those heaters would go. So now I have to ask.....where is the heater on an A1 ? Inside like on our CJ's? BTW Lynn, how bad is that A1 near you ?

 

http://www.engineering.sdstate.edu/~jonesal/jeepheater.html

 

I've owned several. most of mine were civil defence vehicles after their stint in the military, usually part of city fleets etc.