What would you do if you came upon a well used and slightly rusted vintage SUV? While some might just get it running and drive it, the owner of this vintage Willys Wagon decided two doors and an inline six just wouldn't do. The lifted and stretched four door Willys seen here is the unique result. Featuring a modern diesel drive-train this updated and restored Willys is currently for sale on Ebay.
When Willys station wagons were first introduced in 1946 they were only available with two doors and two wheel drive. They were the first all steel station wagons ever built and arguably the first SUV that was designed with a non commercial purpose in mind. Even though a few years after their introduction a four wheel drive option became available and a handful of early Willys Wagons were built with four doors, nothing ever left the factory like the one seen here.
In truth, this truck is half stretched Willys body and half 1997 Dodge 3/4 ton truck. The body was stretched 40 inches and fitted with an extra set of doors before being dropped on to the modern Dodge chassis. Accordingly this four door beast now features a Cummins Turbo Diesel hooked up to a five speed manual transmission.
The resulting vehicle is unique to say the least and one of the few stretched Willys wagons ever made. What was once a humble early Willys is now an 18.5 foot monster that is an inch under seven feet tall. Clearly done with a high level of detail, this truck is a well engineered work of custom genius rather than the backyard hack job these sort of vehicles normally end up as.
At this point we would normally start launching into how awesome a vintage SUV nicely retrofitted with a Cummins turbo diesel is, and it is, but our verdict on this wagon is still out. Sure it's a nicely executed and very unique custom Willys, but it currently has a staggering asking price of $68,800. After you drop that kind of dough for a vehicle like this we have to question what you can actually do with it.
We wonder whether there are people out there who dare to make this kind of a purchase and then start to actually use it off road (we hope so). More likely, we fear this custom Willys has a future of sitting in a garage and collecting trophies at car shows ahead of it which is a shame. A vehicle this ridiculous deserves to be hooned off road in the manner it was built for.