{"id":728,"date":"2016-09-20T10:01:36","date_gmt":"2016-09-20T10:01:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.deilers.com\/AlaskaOrRust\/?p=728"},"modified":"2017-08-21T20:18:04","modified_gmt":"2017-08-21T20:18:04","slug":"andreas-gruson-and-his-jeeps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.deilers.com\/AlaskaOrRust\/2016\/09\/andreas-gruson-and-his-jeeps\/","title":{"rendered":"Andreas Gruson And His Jeeps"},"content":{"rendered":"

Andreas Gruson is a busy executive who operates Industrial Advisory Services. He’s got several jeeps, including a Kubota powered 1963 Truck, a green CJ-2A and a red CJ-3A. Andreas will be driving his recently rebuilt Kubota powered 1963 truck. Accompanying him will be his teenage son Luis and two friends, Dario and Marcello Riera, who will be traveling in a truck and trailer (just in case).<\/p>\n

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LONG TRIPS IN JEEPS:<\/strong><\/p>\n

People have used jeeps\u00a0to travel far and wide. The Alaska Or Rust crew follows a long, proud tradition of exploring via the jeep. Here are fourteen\u00a0early\u00a0great\u00a0adventures:<\/p>\n

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  1. Bantam BRC in 1940:<\/strong> The earliest documented trip occurred September 29th, 1940. That was the day the very first jeep\u2014the original Bantam BRC constructed in only 49 days\u2014was driven 270 miles from Butler, Pennsylvania, to the testing ground in Holabird, Maryland.\u00a0It was an amazing accomplishment given the newly designed vehicle had been barely assembled, let alone tested.<\/li>\n
  2. Wolf Blint in 1945:<\/strong> Near the end of World War II,\u00a0Wolff Blint escaped fighting on the eastern front by driving across Europe to Paris. He documented his story in his memoir, By Jeep To Freedom<\/a><\/strong>. The book is out of print and difficult to find.<\/li>\n
  3. Soldier and Bride Return from Europe circa 1945<\/strong>: An unconfirmed event, the story unfolds with a U.S. soldier marrying a woman in Europe following WWII. Somehow, he is able to secure\u00a0a jeep. Together, the pair drive to a port in France or Germany, have the jeep shipped to America, and then drive the remainder of the route to the man’s hometown in Illinois.<\/li>\n
  4. Ben Carlin in 1948-1958:<\/strong>\u00a0In 1948,\u00a0Australian Ben Carlin <\/a>began a trek around the world by heading east over the Atlantic Ocean in a\u00a0modified 1943 Ford GPA (a jeep made to float over water) named ‘Half-Safe’. Over the succeeding ten years, Ben and Half-Safe traveled 50,000 miles over a period of ten years. His exploits filled three books, each book covering his voyage in different ways. Half-Safe can be seen in action in this video: https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=z-Gqi-RlbO0<\/a><\/li>\n
  5. Helen & Frank Schreider in 1954-1955<\/strong>. Helen & Frank Schreider first jeep ended in a failed attempt to cross Panama in a Willys wagon when their jeep was beat to death as they drove across a long train trestle. For their 1954-55 attempt they purchased and customized a Ford GPA, naming it La Tortuga. Starting in Alaska, the pair traveled all the way to South America. Subsequently, they wrote a book called\u00a020,000 Miles South: A Pan American Adventure in a Seagoing Jeep From the Arctic<\/a><\/strong> (A nearly identical version is published under the name La Tortuga). They also filmed some of their trip and toured the United States giving lectures about their experiences.<\/li>\n
  6. Three Boy Scouts Travel 44,000 Miles in 1955<\/strong>: Dubbed Operation Pineapple,\u00a0three Sao Paulo Boy Scouts\u2014Hugo Vidal, Charles Downey, and Jan Stekly\u2014drove from South America to Alaska and back as part of their effort to attend the 8th World Scout Jamboree in Canada. The CJ-3B Page<\/a><\/strong> has an excellent overview of their trip.<\/li>\n
  7. Dorothy Rogers & Louise Ostberg in 1955-1956<\/strong>: Dorothy and Louise were two college professors from New York who met while traveling in Europe. They successfully circumvented Africa in a jeep wagon. Dorothy later wrote a book about their adventure called Jeopardy and a Jeep<\/a><\/strong>.<\/li>\n
  8. Joe Ceurvorst in 1956<\/strong>: Joe wrote a book called Africa in a Jeep<\/a><\/strong> about driving around the\u00a0northern part of\u00a0the African continent.<\/li>\n
  9. Roy Follows and Noel Dudgeon in 1958<\/strong>: Joe and Roy were\u00a0two Colonial Police officers fighting Chinese Communists near the end of the Malayan Emergency. Ready to head home, the pair bought a Willys\u00a0MB in February of 1958, then begin a long journey home full of obstacles, broken parts, encounters with unfriendlies and more. Their tale from Singapore to the United Kingdom unfolds in their book about the trip:\u00a0The First Overland:\u00a0Four Wheels and Frontier<\/a><\/strong>.<\/li>\n
  10. Jack & Doreen Shakespeare in 1958<\/strong>: Jack and Doreen drove their early wagon from Australia to England. Lucky for us, they filmed their trip. You can relive their adventures on youtube<\/a><\/strong>.<\/li>\n
  11. Helen and Frank Schreider in 1960<\/strong>: Ready to his the road again, Helen and Frank rebuild a second Ford GPA that they use to float the Ganges River in India.\u00a0Their five month 1960 India adventure from the mouth of the Ganges to its source filled forty-two pages of the October, 1960, issue of National Geographic.<\/li>\n
  12. Helen and Frank Schreider in 1960-1961<\/strong>: On the heels of their India trip, the Schrieders, again with National Geographic support, tackled the breadth of Indonesia<\/a>, a 17,000 island archipelago, going to places and completing a trip that few, if anyone, has replicated. Their 4,000 mile trip lasted a year. Their ability to shuttle between islands and over land took them to places no vehicles had gone. Helen and Frank wrote two subsequent articles for National Geographic (May 1961 & August 1962) and a second book, the Drums of Tonkin: An Adventure In Indonesia<\/a><\/strong>. They went on to work regularly for National Geographic, though their jeeping days ended.<\/li>\n
  13. Harold Stephens in the mid-1960s:<\/strong> Harold drove around the world\u00a0in a CJ-5 and Toyota Landcruiser. He wrote about his experience in Who Needs a Road?<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0Harold\u00a0went on to become a travel author.<\/li>\n
  14. Dorothy Rogers & Louise Ostberg in the mid-1960s: <\/strong>In the late 1950s, Willys Motors introduced two Forward Control jeep trucks called the FC-150 & FC-170s. Dorthy and Louise thought the latter would make a great vehicle to tour the world. So, they bought one and set off on their second major jeep trip. Dorothy later wrote about their experiences in Highways Across the Horizon<\/a><\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Andreas Gruson is a busy executive who operates Industrial Advisory Services. He’s got several jeeps, including a Kubota powered 1963 Truck, a green CJ-2A and a red CJ-3A. Andreas will be driving his recently rebuilt Kubota powered 1963 truck. Accompanying him will be his teenage son Luis and two friends, Dario and Marcello Riera, who…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-728","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-jeeps-people"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.deilers.com\/AlaskaOrRust\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/728","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.deilers.com\/AlaskaOrRust\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.deilers.com\/AlaskaOrRust\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.deilers.com\/AlaskaOrRust\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.deilers.com\/AlaskaOrRust\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=728"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.deilers.com\/AlaskaOrRust\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/728\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":936,"href":"https:\/\/www.deilers.com\/AlaskaOrRust\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/728\/revisions\/936"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.deilers.com\/AlaskaOrRust\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.deilers.com\/AlaskaOrRust\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.deilers.com\/AlaskaOrRust\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}