Yesterday (and today) I have enjoyed some correspondence from Sebastian, who hails from Colombia and currently resides in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
In 1994, Sebastian and his father (who owns a blue CJ-3A), rebuilt a red 1954 CJ-3B, which can be seen to the right and viewed at the CJ-3B Page (sixth down from the top).
He writes, "My Willys is still in Colombia, so I only ride a couple times a year. Last May I went there for a week and put more than 250 miles on the jeep in less than five days. A couple years ago I became aware, and joined, the “Flat Fender Club of Butler” which is close to Pittsburgh. Butler is the place where the "Bantam" factory was located (the building is still there) and, therefore, it is the place where everything related to the Jeep started. The club is formed by a very nice group of people who are crazy about old willys. You can see some of the recent events and history of the club at: http://flatfenderclubofbutler.wordpress.com/ This blog also shows some pictures of the owners and our new T-shirts and Caps!"
Sebastian wrote me yesterday, telling me he and some buddies made a special trip to visit the Willys Spring 2011 Reunion.
He writes, "Yesterday I went to the Midwest willys reunion in Mason OH. Altough we did not take our jeeps, some members of the Flat Fender Club of Butler went there to see some nice willys. It was a busy day, about 4 hours each way (from Pittsburgh). A very long day as you can imagine, totally worth it as shown in the pictures: http://flatfenderclubofbutler.wordpress.com/ (top post). I thought you may want to take a look."
Here's a couple of his images. See all of them at the link above.
I want to thank Sebastian for the wonderful poncho he brought me from Colombia! Now that I have the proper clothes, I think I'm ready for a visit! Oh wait. I need to sell some more books before I can go . . .
Sebastian forwarded this to me today. This is great!
"While driving in Antioquia Colombia my dad found this electric Jeep. It is smaller than normal size and the owner (see picture) is asking for about $3700 US dollars. It is a pure home-made Willys. Only in Colombia!!"
He writes, "We did a breakfast picnic in a park last sunday with my wife Ana and a friend. During the picnic I realized that this was getting very close to a part of your book when you had breakfast in a park with "Virginia", and you were even wearing an orange shirt!, haha, I hope that is were the similarities end. Anyway, it was a great day, and beautiful to take the willys out for this."
Sebastian, whom I mentioned in this post (a couple posts down), taught me a couple things about Willys in Colombia today.
1) Willys are very popular in Colombia. They started arriving during the 50’s and immediately became a sensation. They are still used regularly in the coffee plantations. He assures us that every single coffee beam that we enjoy in a Colombian Coffee has been transported at some point in a Willys (most probably a CJ-3B). There are cities and towns where you can see Willys everywhere, being used as work vehicles. For somebody from this country it would be like going back on time. They are also used as taxis, carrying people by the dozen. [Editor's note: Nice work Sebastian; I am sold on a trip to Colombia :-)]
2) There are many Jeep festivals in Colombia. Most of them occur between September and October; they are called “Yipaos”. The festivals were started in 1988. The vehicles are driven through the main streets of a city and the Jeeps with the largest amount of objects carried with the most harmonious arrangements earn prizes. In fact, in February 2006, a Guinness World Records was established for the "Longest Jeep Parade" in Calarca, with a caravan of over 370 Jeep Willys vehicles. It seem to me that we need to break that record back!Here's an article about it on the CJ-3B page.
Sebastian also sent me a powerpoint with some nice big pictures of one festival. You just gotta see it to believe. Check out the mud flaps ... I've been looking for some older looking mud flaps!
Here's a beautiful Wagon spotted by Jean-Sebastian.
"1954 Willys Wagon 4x4. Older Restoration Good Solid Body . Needs a bit of Interior work. Hard to find one in this good shape with original running gear. Super Hurricane 226 Engine 3 speed manual transmission Dana Diffs. Safety Inspected to Licence. Vehicle is located in Canada. Can arrange shipping to US Border."
A couple updates for Sunday. We've had family in town this weekend, so things are busy around here.
One family member brought over these locally roasted beans, so we decided to create our own Yipao scene. We couldn't have done it without the jeep, a gift from Jerry Huber last year, and the Colombian poncho, a gift years ago from Sebastian Lobo-Guerrero (8 years ago ... I had a little less gray hair!).
Sebastian forwarded me the Willys Colombia website. I realized I couldn't find it because I was spelling Colombia wrong (my spelling: Columbia). I have now corrected all the other posts as well. Ooops.
Anyway, there's lots of great pics. One section includes the official Guinness Book of Records Photos from the parade are there too. However, one thing I haven't determined is exactly how many jeeps were there. I have seen the figures of approximately 300 jeeps and of approximately 370. I tried to search Guinness, but had no luck. Here's a few of the pics.
Sebastian forwarded this photo of Gerald, Augusto, Sebastian, and myself. That's Sebastian's CJ-3B to the right.
On the morning of Saturday June 15th, I fixed some breakfast and enjoyed a leisurely start to the day.
At 10:30am, we left camp to stock up on some drinks at the local store. As we exited the one road into the campground and festival we were surprised to see a lineup of folks entering the festival that was at least 2 miles long!
Here are the lines of cars we passed on Saturday morning:
After we made it back to the campground, I gave me second presentation. This time, the audience was much larger! The fact it had gotten warm out and that we were offering water and shade didn't hurt, either.
These pictures were taken at the show 'n shine:
Kids big and small weren't left out of the fun either. There was a large gathering of spectators eager to watch jeeps navigate the offroad course.
And while the crowds weren't as large for the kids, plenty of fun was had:
And, no this crowd wasn't there to listen to me . . .
Eventually, we returned to camp, took shelter from the heat and had some dinner.
After dinner, Gerald took us on a cruise of the Cooper Lake campground in his CJ-3B. As he drove, he explained he'd camped at Cooper's Lake many times, so he showed us just how large the grounds were. We forded a couple streams and rounded the lake while comparing jeeping stories from 'back in the day' when we had no gray hair. The scope of all the camping areas with jeeps was a throw back to my experiences in the 1970s. Summer Conventions in the Pacific Northwest were massive then.
Gerald's driving and his son Will is in the back seat. I'm in the back seat, too. Not the best light for photography, especially with the jeep bouncing.
It was 9pm when we arrived back at our humble camp. Not long after we returned, Ann learned that some big storms were heading our direction. Normally, we wouldn't mind listening to the rain bounce off the canopy roof above our tent. However, since we still had a week before we'd return home the last thing we wanted was to pack a went canopy and tent in the morning. So, we decided to pack up and head out for Niles, OH. We chose Niles, because it was close to tomorrow's museum visit: The Packard Museum.
