The Jeep CJ3B – what is it?

I stumbled upon this really great site about the CJ3B a Willys Universal Jeep CJ-3B built in the 1950’s and 60’s. It had flat front fenders like earlier Jeep models (such as the CJ-2A and CJ-3A), but can be distinguished by a higher hood profile.

I highly recommend this site if you are looking for detailed information about older Jeep models and their history, I know I will be perusing it often.

An excerpt from the website:
The Universal Jeep CJ-3B was introduced as a 1953 model by Willys-Overland, the company which had produced some 360,000 jeeps used during World War 2, and almost as many civilian Jeeps (CJ’s) in the seven years since the war. 1953 was also the year Willys-Overland was sold to the Kaiser-Frazer Corporation, who used the Willys Motors name until 1964.

Factory photo One limitation of the wartime jeeps, and the postwar civilian models CJ-2A and CJ-3A, was the limited horsepower of the 4-cylinder L-head “Go-Devil” engine. The new F-head “Hurricane” engine, which Willys began putting in its larger vehicles in 1949, had its intake valves in the head rather than the engine block, allowing them to be larger. The first Jeep big enough for the engine was the military M38A1 in 1951. (The M38A1 was also the debut of the new “round-fender” body design that would be used for most of the Jeeps of the next five decades.) The first civilian Universal Jeep with the Hurricane engine was the new “high-hood” CJ-3B (see a post-1961 factory photo at right).