It's often said that what we remember as The Sixties actually started in 1964, and the arrival of The Beatles on the world stage during that year was certainly a big factor in setting off the explosion of youth culture which marked the rest of the decade. Meanwhile, Kaiser Jeep Corporation had already introduced the new Wagoneer and Gladiator, the first 4x4s that looked like they were designed as cars rather than as weapons, so they needed to drop something from their lineup.
Here's a look back at some of the things that were happening during the Christmas holidays sixty years ago.
The quintessential North American Christmas photo has the kids posed in front of the tree after opening their presents. This 1964 example is courtesy of Craig Daniel, and it appears to have been staged by the parents to nicely display all the toys. Looks like Craig has a couple of Japanese tinplate Jeeps that collectors would be paying big money for, sixty years later.
The stripes lithographed on the seats and the roof, and particularly the fringe, make it clear that the little blue Jeep pulling the boat trailer was meant to look like a Jeep Surrey. The slightly longer wheelbase suggests that the body was based on the Mitsubishi CJ3B-J10 (130K JPEG).
Maybe I should also mention the Uncle Wiggily board game, since the parents placed it so prominently in the photo, and many of us will remember playing it. The game, based on the thousands of Uncle Wiggily stories by Howard R. Garis, was first sold in 1916 by Milton Bradley, and is still being produced today although it has been updated several times.
The cab forward truck seen in the foreground of the Christmas morning photo is harder to identify. I thought it might be a Forward Control Jeep, but it didn't appear to be one of the handful of FC toys you usually run across. Ken Coughlin identified it as a Structo toy based on the Corvair Rampside pickup.
By December 1964, Kaiser Jeep had actually wound down production of the Forward Controls. In November they released this updated Parts List for the trucks, but it would be used mainly to help keep existing trucks on the road, because the 1965 model year would be the last. The FCs never sold as well as Willys had hoped, and the big Gladiator pickups had come online for 1963, giving Kaiser too many different models, so something had to give.
Willys and then Kaiser did have some success selling FCs to the military, and to companies who turned them into fire apparatus, although Willys never marketed a "factory" FC fire truck.
On 28 December this FC-170, believed to be the last one converted by Valley Fire Truck of Bay City, Michigan, was delivered to Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. The full story of the truck, which is now part of a private collection in Houston, is at Wilkes-Barre Pumper 4 on CJ3B.info.
Another Jeep milestone, perhaps less well known than the end of the Forward Control, was the end of the civilian CJ-3B in North America. Dean Lachasse's Sierra Blue 1965 CJ-3B, built in December 1964, was the last production CJ-3B we know of which was sold domestically. From then into the 1968 model year, the venerable high hoods were exported as M606 versions, sent as military aid by the U.S. government.
Looking ahead to the increasing importance of overseas production of Jeeps, Kaiser's "Xport Low Investment" program in 1964 proposed a simpler, flat-panel version of the CJ-5. It had some similarities to the Gladiator, but it was referred to by Jeep employees as the Flintstonemobile, and by the end of the year it was looking less likely to be developed further. Most overseas plants were happy building the CJ-3B.
Another 1964 idea which fizzled out was the Hanna-Barbera animated TV series Jonny Quest, lasting only one season. December saw the first and only Gold Key comic book inspired by the series. Although a number of the TV episodes featured Jeeps quite prominently (see Jeeps in Jonny Quest) the comic book based on the first episode had more of an underwater theme. (And it sells for hundreds of dollars today.)
As younger readers will know, Jonny Quest made a comeback in the 1980s and 90s, both on television and in comic books.
Also on newsstands in December was the latest issue of Popular Science, with the cover promoting an article called "The Flying Jeep." This had nothing to do with Jeeps however; it was what became the long-serving OV-10 Bronco light attack and observation aircraft. The turboprop plane was adopted by the Marines, Navy and Air Force, and would arrive in Vietnam in 1968.
There was bad news out of Vietnam on Christmas Eve. A bomb set by the Viet Cong exploded at the Brinks Hotel, used as a U.S. military Bachelor Officers' Quarters, killing two and wounding scores. It was later discovered that the bomb may have been intended for comedian Bob Hope, whose USO entourage arrived ten minutes after the explosion.
Photo by Manh Hai, courtesy AP Photo/Horst Faas.
Dramatic news was also coming from the Congo all month, after Belgian paratroopers rescued 1600 European and American hostages from Simba rebels in "Operation Red Dragon" at the end of November. Congolese government forces and mercenaries, seen here headed for Stanleyville, continued the attack and rescued 120 hostages in Wamba on 29 December.
Even New York City was briefly a combat zone. On Friday, 11 December, as Che Guevara spoke representing Cuba at the United Nations General Assembly, a Cuban exile fired a rocket toward the building from a bazooka over in Queens. It fell short and exploded in the East River.
Diagram courtesy of the New York Herald Tribune.
On the 18th, the U.S. Pacific Northwest was hit by flooding caused by heavy snow followed by rain. An estimated 18 people died in Oregon and 19 in northern California. This photo courtesy of The Oregonian shows Christmas decorations and traffic in Coos Bay OR.
Five days later, a cyclone struck Sri Lanka and southern India, killing 1800. Hardest hit was Rameswaram Island, where the thriving coastal village of Danushkodi was turned into a ghost town overnight, and today is still only accesible by Jeep (right).
Photo by Ravi Kanniganti, courtesy Behance.
News from India earlier in the month was happier, as Pope Paul VI visited Bombay (now Mumbai) from 2-4 December. The trip was notable for the appearance of the First Popemobile, a Mahindra-Willys CJ-3B.
Many Beatles fans no doubt found records under the Christmas tree. The new LPs out for Christmas were Beatles '65, released on 15 December in North America, and Beatles For Sale, released on the 4th in the UK, two days after Ringo's tonsils were removed. The single "I Feel Fine"/"She's a Woman" was at #1, and members of the Fan Club in the UK were sent this record with a Christmas message.
Fans probably also found Beatles memorabilia under the tree: guitars, lunchboxes, bobble-head dolls and lots of other stuff including the "Flip Your Wig" board game (not the same as the "Uncle Wiggily" game!) These ornaments, made in Italy, may have been on the tree.
Ten months after The Beatles made their debut on The Ed Sullivan Show in February, The Supremes made their first appearance on the show on 27 December, singing their third million-seller, "Come See About Me". Here they're listening to a stack of 45s and a copy of The Chipmunks Sing the Beatles.
The big news on the big screen was the third James Bond film, Goldfinger, premiered in London on 17 December. Everybody remembers Bond's Aston Martin, but it's less well known that this was the first movie to feature a Ford Mustang. James in his DB5 chased Tilly Masterson in her 1964-1/2 convertible through the Alps, slashing her tires and rocker panels with his spinner knives.
Goldfinger also had some Jeeps, full of soldiers guarding Fort Knox, who get knocked out by nerve gas. Some scenes filmed around the actual Fort Knox featured correct M38A1s, but for this scene shot on a set in England they had to settle for an old Willys MB with a CJ-3A windshield.
On New Year's Eve, one of the CJ-3B Police Jeeps of The Hague which had now been serving well for a decade, prepared to go out on patrol.
1964 had been an exciting year in show business, and the Cold War had been heating up. Although it was less exciting at Kaiser Jeep, the company ws well positioned for the future. Exports of the CJ-3B had been very successful, and were now being replaced by licensed manufacturers around the world who could build Jeeps in numbers that Toledo by itself could never match.
Happy Holidays from CJ3B.info! -- Derek Redmond
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