Why Turning This 1991 Jeep Wrangler Into A WWII Jeep Was Probably Way Harder Than You Think

One thing I love about American car culture is that you can pretty much drive anything on public roads. I know this, because I built a reproduction World War II Jeep in my backyard, and I was legally able to drive it despite nobody even having looked at it. This brings me to today’s Facebook Marketplace listing.

I don’t know why I’m still constantly browsing Facebook and Craigslist. I have no space, no money, and no spousal goodwill left. And yet, the addiction continues, and I still play all sorts of weird mental gymnastics about which cars I can sell, which I can store where, and how this allows space for just one more car, which is of course always a white hot deal.

The good news is that in my endless quest for another automotive-dopamine hit I end up finding some gems that I think you, dear readers, might appreciate. Like this:

Listed on Facebook Marketplace as “1991 Jeep wrangler Mb,” it is what the title leads you to think it is — someone took a Jeep Wrangler YJ and somehow turned it into a World War II Jeep.

To some, this may not seem like a big deal. After all, how different is the YJ from the MB? They both have essentially same leaf-sprung suspension, a ladder frame, an inline engine with a low range transfer case, a manual transmission, steel open-top body tub, and a foldable windshield.

In truth, though, they’re extremely different, and this job was definitely a massive undertaking. The YJ is at least four inches wider than the MB, it’s over a foot taller, and it’s almost two feet longer. Dropping the MB body onto the wider, longer YJ frame just… wouldn’t work. Which is why the builder used the original YJ tub.

I’m a bit confused on how they pulled this off, because the YJ tub does not have cutouts for an axe or shovel. Did this person graft the MB’s bedside onto the YJ’s tub, or did they modify the YJ’s tub? The door opening shape is also not YJ-ish. For reference, here’s my YJ:

Up front, you can see how the builder adapted the WWII Jeep grille to fit the taller, dual overhead valve 4.0-liter inline-six or 2.5-liter inline-four (I’m not sure which is in this Jeep). Check out the 4-ish inch vertical extensions on the grille:

I do wonder: How did they fit the windshield? It looks like they didn’t widen the frame itself, but rather just those pivot arms on each side of the cowl; you can see where they have been cut and welded:

Speaking of the cowl, how did this fabricator make that windshield even fit over it?

The YJ’s cowl is a totally different shape than the WWII Jeep’s. Here’s my Willys MB Cowl, which looks like the one above:

And my YJ, you can see, is not rounded; it’s got a squared-off, vertical part about which the windshield pivots:

Here’s a bare YJ tub:

I guess they just hacked that part off.

That brings me to the dashboard. How the heck did they build that dashboard?!

It looks much like my Willys MB Dash:

But how did they graft that dashboard onto the YJ body? A YJ’s dash, for reference, looks like this:

Here’s the body under all that plastic:

This might have you thinking this is actually a Willys MB tub on a YJ frame. But this is very obvious a Jeep YJ tub, as you can see here in the rear:

The WWII Jeep tub, by contrast, does not have a rear door, and it has storage bins atop the rear wheel housings.

What’s more, the WWII Jeep’s hood attaches to its tub via a bunch of bolts hidden out of sight:

This contraption for sale on Facebook has a more conventional hinge like the YJ’s:

Here are my YJ’s hinges:

I reached out to the Facebook seller, Robert, who told me a bit about how he got this Jeep. “So I bought it off a guy that started it,” he told me, “and I finished the body work and installed the mb dash and I put the military tires on in and painted it the olive green.”

How did he get military wheels to fix the 5×4.5-inch bolt pattern on the YJ’s axles? How exactly did he weld in that dash into the YJ tub? How did he get the door opening shape right? How did he get that indent for the shovel and axle? I have many questions.

I’m just in awe at all the work that went into a vehicle that, based on the “Listed 2 years ago” at the top of the listing, might be unsellable.