I Built the Only 2026 WWII Jeep

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.

"o my god I lob a yeep"

Super article. Something to actually read, great photos. "How I Got Myself In This Predicament" is just the sort of subheading I like to read.

The important point is "from as much ebay parts as possible" because I suspect there are still "jeep in a crate" boxes where all you have to do is remove the Cosmolene (this is undoubtedly not all you have to do btw)

I wish he shared what it cost him overall. I can already see from some of the numbers and some guesswork that it must not be a flattering sum, but I still want to see it!

I love the Autopian, glad they're on the HN front page. David Tracy's Jeep antics have kept me up at night worrying for at least 10 years now.

This kind of story makes you realize what a true marvel the modern production line is - so many moving parts that have to line up just right each time to be able to produce vehicles as fast as we do.

This article was tremendous. My dad and I rebuilt an old GPW as my car in high school. His brother bought it as his car for high school a generation earlier. This article and the video are a love letter to that old car- a quirky, heavy, underpowered, beautiful legend.

Is it truly a 2026 car though, if it does not come with an ungodly amount of attention beep nagware that cannot be permanently disabled?

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...

One of my great regrets in life is not knowing anything about how to rebuild an engine (and various other car parts). It's not exactly a cheap hobby, so it's probably for the best, but I have the feeling I would love working on cars (my wife probably not so much).

There's a Wheeler Dealers episode where Edd China takes care of a WWII Jeep.

Wow. This is super neat. After having gotten my hands dirty on a 30+ year old car, I can definitely see why it would be desirable to have a relatively new frame to start from vs. a WWII Jeep.

Just like they eventually added to WWII Jeeps, it needs a huge anti-decapitation pole on the front (maybe a really cool (and huge) hood ornament?).

a decent long form article with pictures, a story, well written, and something of interest. I will read this fully later as it will require some time. Good work!

Good skills to have for mad-maxing it thru the desert after the ai apocalypse :)

I can see the appeal, not having to deal with much rust or bolts breaking (the 2 things which cause the most trouble for me in working on vehicles). 800 miles across the desert is some way to run it in though!

"the only" is hardly ever correct. you built the only one that you know of

Incredible project.

And how much I love that this is an article instead of an youtube video.

[flagged]

Cool, maybe worth it!