This year’s Bantam Jeep Heritage Festival, held in Butler, PA from June 14th-16th was a great event to attend… So many things to see and not enough time! For those of you who heard about the event and stopped by to visit, it was a real pleasure to spend time meeting with you and learning more about your restoration projects! We had some great comments from all of you and hope to see you at the next event! Here is a look at the Kaiser Willys “bungalow” and a few of the things we experienced over the weekend.
The WWII encampment was wonderfully set up with all of the military Jeeps, period antiques and uniforms… Not to mention the great guys and members of the MVPA who spent so much time transforming their vehicles into living timepieces! The second morning of the event we even got a swing dance lesson from one of the reenactors!
Not far from the Kaiser Willys tent was a covered building that housed the Jeep History museum, displaying many fantastic vehicles to see starting with a Bantam Jeep and spanning the decades up and all the way through to present Jeeps.
It really was mind-boggling to see so many Jeeps (around 1500) lined up for the the Jeep Invasion, located in downtown Butler, PA. It took around two hours to walk through the streets to try to see everything and I’m pretty sure we still didn’t see all of them!
Kaiser Willys’ own Pin Up Girl, Rachel, posing for the camera! Know of any great Willys or Jeep events you’d like to see us attend? Drop us a line and let us know about it!
Kaiser Willys Jeep Blog Story
If you would like to share your Willys Jeep Story please send us a line. We ‘d love to meet your Jeep.
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I was a volunteer @BJHF 2015 & I’m trying to find the “soldier” who was helping to cook SOS for lunch in the mess tent this past Saturday. My brother & I had a lovely chat w/him about my grandfather who was a cook thru 3 wars! Would love to touch base with him, but I had to go to the hospital for heat exhaustion & never got his name. I’m hoping he was w/your group & someone can give him my contact info. He’s tall & lanky, sandy-haired, nice laugh! 😉 Thank you! Amy Cannard, email: acannard@wbf.com
P.S. If you would like someone to sing National Anthem for flag-raising @festival encampment 2016 -I’m also a singer!
Nice write up, why did I have to scroll all the way down to see the pinup girl? 🙂
Nice write up. Just so credit is given where credit is due, the MVPA members there are a local chapter with membership covering western PA, eastern OH, and northern WV called the First Frontier Mechanized Cavalry (FFMC). Anyone interested in joining can find our yahoo group website and get in touch.
The video on the Bantam Jeep Festival website is one of the best on military-jeep history.