TJ or Willys? It depends!

by Karl Bauer
(Waidhofen Thaya, Austria)

The best and most universal on road/off road Jeep ever is the TJ for sure.

I drove thousands of miles in my TJ through off roads and went back thousands of miles on highways and never had a problem.

Now I have my second one and it is as good as the first. The engine is absolutely reliable going on the highest elevations or in hours long traffic jams in Mexico, through snow in Canada or water and heaviest rains in Florida. The thing runs and runs with relatively low maintenance and no failures for more than 160,000 miles in Europe and the Americas with good gas mileage.

The soft top is never leaking, and nor is the whole Jeep. This is the first Jeep I owned after 30 years without having wet feet while driving in rain. Greatest Jeep ever, no doubt.

If it is about the looks, I love my CJ3A. I could never make up my mind which is the best looking Jeep ever but the advantage (versus a girl) is that I store the windshield frame of a CJ2 and a MB grille, just in case I am changing my mind over night, I can change this baby in no time. Try this with a good looking girl.

I keep the old one because it looks good and my project now is to combine the beauty with the advantage of the good. I put coil springs in it and high tech brakes and other upgrades. The goal is to keep the looks as much as possible and still make it a daily driver.

The comfort of the roof, the wet feet issue and the poor seating is the compromise like dating the best looking but least modern girl.

Main thing is that you love it/her.


Larry's Comment: Good points Karl..but not too sure about the Jeep vs. Girl analogies..LOL!