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I Built the Only 2026 WWII Jeep

theautopian.com

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Re: I Built the Only 2026 WWII Jeep

#21

Post by AnimalMuppet »

hardibro wrote: post #19
27183 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

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.

Re: I Built the Only 2026 WWII Jeep

#24

Post by hardibro »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #21
hardibro wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Re: I Built the Only 2026 WWII Jeep

#25

Post by 27183 »

hardibro wrote: post #24
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 :)

Re: I Built the Only 2026 WWII Jeep

#26

Post by fusslo »

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.

Re: I Built the Only 2026 WWII Jeep

#27

Post by bushwart »

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...

Re: I Built the Only 2026 WWII Jeep

#28

Post by cduzz »

bushwart wrote: post #27

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?

Re: I Built the Only 2026 WWII Jeep

#30

Post by pjc50 »

27183 wrote: post #15
hardibro wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

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.

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