Before going into the shop for a rebuild
Before going into the shop for a rebuild
Where do I start with Tom's Jeepster? I guess first I should explain that Tom worked for Jeep in Toledo from 1956 until 1975 when he went to Detroit with AMC. He held a few different positions within Jeep including being a Specifications Engineer, and a National Distribution Manager. He remembers the Hurst project well as his department actually wrote the requests to the Engineering Department to get the ball rolling on projects like the Hurst. Tom has been able to provide me with some good insight into the project. I will do a little write-up for the members area or on the forums about our discussions at a later date.
So, you might be asking... is that supposed to be a Hurst? Well, yes and no. Tom's Jeepster was one of the engineering prototypes (or pilots I believe Tom called them) for the Hurst project. His Jeepster was actually a 1970 "open body" model when it came off of the assembly line in April of 1969. It was then sent to the factory modification center and stayed there nearly a year getting dressed up as the Hurst pilot. It had at least two different paint jobs (red w/ orange wheels, and orange w/ red wheels), equipment additions and alterations, different stripings, dual exhaust, etc. According to Tom, they tested out different color and top options for the Hirst project until it was decided that they could cut costs and make more profit by simply using white Jeepsters with hardtops. After the project was scaled back and the white hardtop prototypes were picked as the final design, Tom was able to buy this Jeepster from Jeep (back then they let you do that kind of thing). Before allowing it out the door with Tom, they removed the Hurst badging, the dual exhaust, the shifter console, and painted it red without any stripes. A couple things you may notice is that he actually has the original brushed chrome steering wheel that never made it into the production models, and also his tachometer is different. Tom thinks that as they were mocking up the Hurst project they just used a hood mounted tachometer that they had laying around. So it is likely that his AMC tachometer was "borrowed" from the 1970 AMC "Rebel" project inventory, which used a 8000 RPM hood mounted tachometer. His Jeepster also had the dual gate shifter, which he had no need for and later traded to a Jeep dealer for a rollbar.
Tom's Jeepster only has about 16k original miles. Tom used to drive it in some sand obstacle races and hill climbs in the sand dunes of Southwest Michigan. His wife also drove it and did well in some "Powder Puff" events. Even though it has very little mileage on it, Tom made a fatal mistake. After driving it around the snowy/slushy/salted roads of Michigan in the mid 70's he parked it in the garage and let it sit for years. The salt had a field day on the unprotected panels, and as a result he has some serious rust issues in the floor pan. Tom recently decided to get it out of storage and have it rebuilt, in fact the guy who is restoring it for him is actually the one who contacted me about the vehicle originally. He put me in touch with Tom and I have enjoyed talking to him about what was going on inside of the Jeep Corp around the time of the Hurst project. Tom hopes to have his Jeepster up and running by this spring.
Thank you Tom for sharing so much information and I hope we continue to find out more about your vehicle and more about the Hurst project in general.
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