I don't know. The reason they moved away from the slat grille was because
it WAS difficult and expensive to fabricate. When Ford came up with the
stamped grille, it didn't take too much convincing to Willys to change.
125808 would have occurred in March 1942. 188xxx would have been
in November 1942. Holding a vehicle up for 8 months seems very, very
remote. I also would imagine that even if the vehicle did get held up at
the factory, it will still keep its original serial number. (Why would
they
change the serial number? I would think this Jeep would just have a
later DOD on the tag than others in the same serial number range.
There are examples of some Jeeps just like this that appear to be held
up at the factory for some reason. An example is 120475. This serial
number is in the Feb 1942 range, but has a April 29, 1942 DOD.
Something happened to the Jeep and it was held up.) I'm not saying
a slat grille could not have been put on a later Jeep. I think there needs
to be a photograph that exists a little closer to its assembly date to
make such a claim. There are lots of explanations as to why it does
have a slat grille in that picture. (i.e. The British SAS forces in North
Africa routinely cut some of the bars of the stamped grille because they
felt it obstructed air flow. It could be that the person who had this Jeep
felt the same way and swapped grilles from a wrecked slat grille to
increase air flow.) Also, if you are using registration numbers to
approximate serial numbers, this could also explain the problem.
When were registration numbers assigned, before or AFTER they
received there DOD stamp? If this Jeep was indeed held up at the
factory and did not receive its hood registration until November 1942,
it could very well HAVE a serial number range prior to 120809. It
would be interesting to know if this Jeep still survives.
Sounds like you have a nice database of information. (I am envious
that the Australians kept their records! The US didn't seem to
bother to save the information.) I hope that some day you make the
information available to the public. It would be a nice tool for correctly
restoring these MBs. Also, it is amazing the kind of information you
can gleam by just looking at the data.
Todd Paisley
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'41 Willys MB "slat-grille" (restoration in progress)
'42 Ford GPW "script" (very rough)
'44 CJ2 Agri-Jeep (#12 of 12 prototypes built for testing
whether Jeeps had a civilian use!)
'45 CJ2A (68th CJ ever built!) (Just a pile of parts...)
'46 CJ2A (early column shift)
'46 CJ2A (late)
'47 CJ2A (Farm Jeep with 3-point Monroe hydraulic implement lift)
'48 CJ2A (trencher)
'64 CJ5A (Tuxedo Park Mark IV) (column shift with front bench seat option)
'64 Wagoneer (with IFS option) (39,000 original miles)
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