[rescue] My new toy in Laurel MD!

[Mike Hebel]

Patrick Giagnocavo +1.717.201.3366 wrote:

> The old Jeeps (not sure of make or model) for the military had
> independant, rather than solid rear axle, rear suspensions.  If you
> were not careful, the independant suspension would dump you with
> little warning.

There's an old army training film I saw a clip of once that showed 
exactly how easy it was to totally tumble one of these.  Pretty cool!
Anybody know where that video would be now?

> The army would decommission them by cutting them in half.  It was thus
> up to enterprising Jeep lovers to buy a front half and a back half and
> figure out how to put it together again.

Probably a fairly simple process - I'm sure there was a few rings of 
"Jeep welders" around that time.  I also heard that the ones left in 
Europe were buried in large amounts because the auto industry never 
wanted them to come home. ;-)

> I would have rather the army sold them whole.  People are not idiots,
> contrary to what many of us think, and would have figured out how not
> to abuse them relatively quickly.

*Ahem*  "People are dumb, panicky, and you know it!" - MIB

I'm sure the people that would acutally _want_ these though would not 
fit the "average" group criteria.  But then the Darwin Award can be 
given to anybody...

> Alternatively, those seriously thinking of buying could fly to a
> Hummer-heavy area like Denver CO and spend a few days looking at them
> locally before either buying and driving back or hopping on the plane
> to go home.

There's a Hummer place in Schaumburg, IL and another in Naperville, IL. 
  I've never bothered to stop and take a test-drive because I was 
interested in the military ones not the fancy leather and chrome ones.

Mike Hebel