Cool, rare and affordable—while conventional car person wisdom might suggest you can only get two, we'll happily argue this awesome 1961 Jeep FC150 currently listed on Ebay has it all.
It's a bit of a mutt, but it's unimaginable—to us at least—that anyone would dispute the cool factor on this old Forward Control Jeep. Named for their cab-over design these flat front Jeeps were available as the longer wheelbase FC170 and as the shorter wheelbase FC150 shown here. The design was the unique brainchild of Brook Stevens, but underneath these utilitarian beasts were mostly CJ-5. You need look no further than Jeep's "torture us with a model they won't build" Mighty FC concept to see that the same concept and basic design is still just as cool, if not cooler now as it was when new.
Not only are they cool, original FCs are quite rare these days. We aren't sure how many of the approximately 30,000 Forward Control Jeeps built over their nine year production run (1956-1965) remain, but we'd guess not many. Most of these utility vehicles were worked hard when new and their permanent oddball status meant not a ton were saved. As a result, finding one of these Forward Control Jeeps almost 50 years after the last one was built is not an easy task.
Perhaps this is why we were so pleased to find this one on Ebay with a surprisingly reasonable high bid of $3,352 with less than two days left. Because this one was built after 1957 it features a nine inch wider track, but sports the bed of an earlier, narrower model. Recently restored with an odd but acceptable color combination, it might not win a Concours but this FC certainly looks ideal for driver duty to us.
So what is the catch you might ask? Well, as always there is one—despite the fact it currently runs and drives the original Hurricane four cylinder engine that sits underneath the cab of this truck is tired and in need of a rebuild. Maybe we're crazy, but to us that is a minor obstacle in the name of cheap Forward Control fun.
[Ebay]