Tangerine Dream

When Josh Randell was young, he and a friend spent countless hours playing with a Tamiya “Wild Willys” RC car. Josh had great fun with this toy Willys but was left with a deep desire to own a life-size flatfender.

When he got licensed to drive genuine cars, the RC playtime faded away, but not his desire to own a real Willys.

After years of unsuccessfully looking for his own Willys, Randell decided to settle for a Toyota FJ40. While not as cool as a flat fender, an FJ40 would be better than no 4x4. Well, the Jeep gods where smiling down on him that day, as the owner of the Toyota also had a ’48 Willys CJ-2A. While it was rough, it did still have the original F-head mill and all of the other major parts. A deal was struck and Randell finally had his Willys flatfender. Once it was home, he ran it around a bit and found that, while the 2A was clean for a rig that was more than 60 years old, it was a little rough around the edges and in need of work. Randell had been considering Rock Solid Off road (RSO), in San Jacinto, California, for the work on the FJ40 he had planned to buy, so naturally he reached out to them for help with the flatfender.

Chassis

The first thing on the list for the chassis was evaluation of its condition to see what repairs where needed. The old frame was too twisted to be a good base for the planned stretch of this Jeep, so it was set aside and used for reference during the build of a new 2x3x0.120-inch steel tube frame that was slightly longer to accommodate the body stretch. To improve approach and departure angles, the frame was set up with the axles on a 92-inch wheelbase.