History Lesson: Five Jeeps That Make Us Love Jeep

Apparently I wasn’t the only one having trouble keeping my CJs from my JKs, because otherwise former forum member G.I.JOE¤MFA¤ would have addressed his “Jeep History (Understanding Your Jeeps Model Code – Identity Crisis)” thread directly to me.

As is, I feel like I’m not the only one who could use such a detailed refresher course on how we got here from World War II. And since this thread is everything you could ever want out of a Jeep history lesson and more, I thought it’d be good to dig it up again (even if the original poster of the thread has since been banned).

The thread is a reposting of an old JPMagazine.com story, with pictures added by Joe that are “as close to stock as possible.” It’s a detailed to all heck telling of the Jeep story, told through model designations and years, full of classic pics that will make you long for Jeeps gone by. Alas, the thread is so detailed, we’d be doing you a disservice by rehashing it here. You really must go check it out.

But for those who want just a small taste of what you can expect to find, I’ve sorted through the tasty bits to find you the juiciest Jeeps from this history lesson, the ones that made me fall in love with Jeep in the first place. And since I’m being all historical, I present these love-striking Jeeps in chronological order…

5. MB / Willys-Overland standardized Jeep / 1941-1945: If you love Freedom, then you love this Military Model B, because this is the Jeep that helped drive America to victory in World War II.

4. CJ-2 / Willys-Overland Agri-Jeep / 1944-45: Basically just the MB with a few farm mods, the first CJ helped us realize that if we put all that effort and technology into growing stuff instead of destroying it, we could grow a lot of stuff.

3. CJ-7 / AMC Jeep “roundfender”/ 1976-86: Daisy Duke, the woman who first taught me to love, drove this Jeep. And if you don’t love Daisy Duke, then you don’t love freedom.

2. XJ / Jeep Cherokee / 1984-2001: This is the car I drove to the homecoming dance with Tammy Smith during my junior year of high school. Yep, I loved that car. And so did a ton of other consumers.

1. JK / Jeep Wrangler / 2007-present: My editor told me if I didn’t make this number one then I could go write for the YJ-Forum.

Chime in with your thoughts on the forum. >>

Photos [Wikipedia, Pinterest, JK-Forum]