Remembering Mike Warn’s Outrageous 1950 Jeepster With a Chevy Big-Block Heart

Introduced way back in 1948, the Jeepster was an attempt by Willys-Overland Motors to make the utilitarian Jeep more appealing to customers of deluxe automobiles. Think of it as an upscale SUV born about four decades before such a vehicle became cool. But some enthusiasts took this fancy Jeep and turned it into a capable off-roader.

One of these Jeepsters was prepped for more than just asphalt by Thurston Warn, the son of Arthur Warn, a man known for founding Warn Industries, the world-renown manufacturer of vehicle recovery equipment and accessories for off-roaders. Thurston’s Jeepster became one of the first vehicles that his son, Mike, had ever driven, and it contributed to his fascination for such machines.

Decades later, in the mid-2010s, Mike found a 1950 model that reminded him of his teenage years and the moments that defined his passion for capable 4x4s. It was well-kept, but still needed a lot of work to get back to its former glory.

He eventually brought the old Willys but instead of fully restoring it, Mike took it to Sultan, Washington, the location of Divers Street Rods (DSR), where it would morph into the off-roading monster that it is today.

After being disassembled, the Jeepster received a custom-built chassis. In the front, the team at DSR equipped the new platform with a Y-bar link suspension that featured King 2.5 remote reservoir coilovers and a Currie RockJock 60 axle with ARB air lockers, RCV CV-style shafts, and Warn locking hubs. For the rear, they developed a four-link system that also employed King 2.5 shocks, a RockJock 60 axle, but the latter 35-spline shafts.

In addition, the chassis received a bespoke steering system based around a 2007 Chevy Silverado 2500HD box and Wilwood six-piston calipers that hug 14-inch slotted rotors behind all four Trail Ready aluminum six-lug wheels.

The body was cleaned and restored but to fit all the new hardware, it had to be thoroughly modified and several panels had to be fabricated from scratch by DSR. After hundreds of hours of painstaking work, everything was painted in a PPG Porsche Seal Gray on top of which a Blasurit satin clear coat was applied. This monster’s overall look was improved with Ford F-100 bumpers from a 1955 model, a Warn 9.0 RC 9,000-pound (4,082 kg) winch, JW LED headlights, and retro Pontiac taillights with modern LEDs.

The interior was another part of this Jeepster that received extensive modifications like a four-point roll cage, Corbeau bucket seats reupholstered with black leather or a custom-built console with switches for the 4WD system and air lockers.

However, the coolest feature of them all was tucked under the hood. Displacing 502 ci (or 8.2 liters), a Ram Jet Chevy big-block V8 became the restomodded ride’s, new heart. The turn-key engine got a Holley HP EFI system, 3-inch Sanderson headers, and a bespoke exhaust system. Linked to a Chevy Performance 4L85E four-speed automatic, it could produce a healthy 502 hp and 565 lb-ft (766 Nm) of torque. The crew at DSR repainted the high-rise intake manifold and cylinder head covers using the same Seal Gray paint, which resulted in an extremely clean and elegant engine bay.

Clean and elegant was the overall theme of this incredible restomod, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t capable of getting dirty. With all the aftermarket off-road goodies it received, this reborn Jeepster was now an all-terrain-conquering beasts that could embarrass any of its modern siblings.