I Built The World’s Only 2026 WWII Jeep. It Nearly Broke Me

“David, you need to call eBay and give them a heads up. You’re supposed to leave soon!” my wife told me every night as I walked into the house, demoralized, covered in grease, mumbling about how doomed my WWII Jeep project is. “There’s no point,” I responded. “There is no backup plan; this Jeep is never going to be ready in time, and yet it has to be because failure is literally not an option.” I had only two weeks before I was supposed to go on a 900 mile road trip from LA to Utah, where I was to tackle some of the toughest off-road trails in America. And my eBay WWII Jeep project looked like this: Watch our feature-length video about this incredible project here on YouTube: How I Got Myself Into This Predicament It was November of 2025, and I was in Las Vegas attending my first-ever Formula One race. eBay Motors had kindly invited me, and I accepted because I’d enjoyed meeting the eBay team at a recent media event, I was curious about F1, and The Autopian was looking for another brand partner. The media industry is incredibly challenging, with publications no longer able to support themselves with ads alone. For us here at The Autopian, this has led us to a three-pillar revenue model: Membership Ads Partnerships with brands we love All three pillars are critical to the health of our company, and the last one is really challenging. Building a partnership means delivering excellent content for a brand that you legitimately love and that loves you back to the point where they choose you over (or alongside) the thousands of influencers and YouTubers and other publications out there. The brand partner has to believe that you can deliver excellence, and though The Autopian creates great content every day, we had only had one long-term brand partner in our first four years. Ebay Motors, to me, seemed like a perfect match for our community. Our readers are constantly buying parts online, and I use eBay basically 24/7 to find rare components for my fleet of old vehicles. My purchase history reads like an automotive Bill of Materials; here’s a tiny snapshot: But how could I get the attention of such a large and beloved brand, and how could I make sure that I delivered a top-tier product for them?

I didn’t have a plan going into the F1 event, mostly because I didn’t want to force anything. It’s very important that partnerships we have here at The Autopian feel organic, and I want our readers to love every single bit of content we produce, whether it’s news, a review, a deep-dive, an investigation or a paid partnership. I don’t know exactly how it came up, but as I was talking to a car enthusiast on eBay’s team, I mentioned that I bought all sorts of Jeep parts off eBay because there’s just so much selection. In fact, I said, there’s so much on eBay that you can literally buy an entire Jeep body! I showed eBay’s rep what I was talking about: “I bet one could build an entire WWII Jeep using parts from eBay,” I continued. “Actually… I’d love to do it,” I half-joked. Ebay’s rep seemed to find the brand new Jeep body interesting, though we quickly returned to paying attention to the F1 race. I drove back home to LA the next day, and a few months elapsed without me giving that red Jeep body tub you see above any more thought. Then, out of the blue, I received an email. It was eBay Motors asking if I’d like to talk about the Jeep project I had semi-jokingly mentioned at the race. “Wait, what?” I thought. “This is great! A potential partnership with eBay would be huge!” Fast forward a month or two, and after we’d proposed a few different partnership scenarios (including one involving flying a Jeep to Normandy), eBay agreed to sponsor a build with the following goals: I would assemble a brand new Willys MB from scratch in my driveway using primarily parts purchased off eBay I would drive the WWII Jeep 900 miles to Moab, Utah I would off-road the Jeep on some of the world’s greatest trails We would deliver world-class articles and videos describing this extraordinary endeavor and highlighting how great eBay is for sourcing car parts, while Ebay would cover build costs and compensate us for the content. If we played this right, this partnership could cover the annual salary of an Autopian staff member; this was a big deal, especially given that, if I was going to have any chance of pulling this off, I’d have to devote basically all my time to it.

I was over the moon for days! We had penned an amazing deal with eBay and all I had to do was… … wait. I had to do what?! I Had Pitched Something Borderline Impossible When I initially introduced the project in August, many readers and I had similar thoughts on how difficult it would be for me to execute. Back when I lived in Michigan as a staff writer for Jalopnik, I used to buy rusted-out $500 junkers, resurrect them on a budget, and take them on epic road trips. Building a brand new WWII Jeep with fresh, rust-free parts should be relatively easy, right? Within about a week of starting on the job I realized that, given the short timeline and my obligations as a father and media company co-founder, what I had proposed to eBay was borderline impossible. The WWII Jeep body I purchased from eBay arrived at my house in a giant wooden box.Rebuilding an existing 1940s WWII Jeep that needs bodywork or engine work or drivetrain work — or all of the above — is extremely challenging, but in those cases, one at least has something to go off of. All the tiny random brackets and fasteners and specialty washers are there. One has a blueprint to copy, replacing old bits with new ones. Committing to a brand new WWII Jeep meant I had to bring an entire vehicle into existence from nothing. It wasn’t just that I had to determine every single tiny part that made up a WWII Jeep, I had to figure out how all those parts went together; with no starting point, I had to reference videos and photos, which meant I had to pore over hundreds of online forums and pages of WWII Jeep literature. I ended up getting lucky and finding a reference Jeep nearby; this would help me figure out how certain parts were meant to go together and act as a source for random bits should I be unable to source each of the 1000+ parts that make up a WWII Jeep (in the end, I would only borrow three from the reference Jeep, though with better planning I could have used none). The vehicle was a completely rotten junker that I bought from the desert for $1500 with no title and no paperwork.

Because most of the Jeep had been jerry-rigged such that it was far from factory-original, it wouldn’t be the ideal reference Jeep, but there was a fully-restored WWII Jeep at the Petersen Automotive Museum, so I snapped a few photos of that to help out. I stopped by the Petersen Automotive Museum to get an idea of what I was up against. GULP.I stopped by the Petersen Automotive Museum to get an idea of what I was up against. GULP.One of the main benefits of the crusty reference Jeep was that I could yank the engine out and use it as a guide as I built up the new engine. Yes, you read that right. The new engine. Early in the project, I asked myself this question: Given that I promised to build a brand new WWII Jeep, how much of it needs to be brand new in order to avoid it feeling like an old Jeep that has been restored? Ultimately, I decided that the vast majority of parts (75% or more) had to be brand new, and three components in particular absolutely had to be factory-fresh: the body, the frame, and the engine. As for how many parts I wanted to source through eBay: at least 90%. The body that I’d purchased from eBay was originally manufactured by the Manila, Philippines-based company called MD Juan; it had shown up in a gigantic wooden box that had to be lowered down from a big truck, and then wheeled into my driveway. The frame, also built by MD Juan, was shipped to a local warehouse. I was able to put that into the back of my 1989 Chevy K1500 and unload it in my driveway with the help of my friend Carlos (see above). Unlike the body and frame, my engine didn’t originate in the Philippines, but rather another nation with a huge WWII Jeep culture: France. Specifically, the motor was cast by a company called “Willys Owner Product.” I chatted with eBay seller Kaiser Willys, who said they had one available and were happy to list it on their popular eBay store.

Within a few weeks, a sizable wooden crate showed up at my workplace, and inside was the most beautiful engine block I had ever seen; it was a shiny new Go-Devil motor, and I was likely going to be the first American in 80 years to install one on a brand new frame. Two Major Preparations That Would Ultimately Save Me Unlike many sponsored builds you might have seen before, this one wasn’t going to involve a huge crew of experts, a well-stocked garage with a hydraulic lift, or a big film crew. No, this would be just me in my driveway trying to build the greatest 4×4 of all time in a ridiculously short amount of time, while also not completely dropping the ball running a media company, raising an infant, and being a good husband. I was a dad with tools and a prayer, and since I understood this was a longshot, I prepped my workplace and made a few strategic calls to give me a bigger chance at success. Prepping My Workspace (Which Was Just My Driveway) There were three critical things I did to prepare my workplace — which was just my driveway here on the east side of LA and, to a lesser extent, my small garage — to become, essentially, an automobile factory. First, I built a workbench, which I was lacking because my family had just moved into this 100 year-old suburban LA house. On that workbench I bolted a vise and a bench-grinder — two tools that I would end up using pretty much constantly throughout the build: Second, I bought three shelves on which to store the hundreds of parts I was about to have arriving at my doorstep pretty much nonstop for the following six months. Third, I purchased four huge boxes of assorted (fine thread and coarse thread SAE) fasteners. I understood that, even if I had all the parts needed to build a WWII Jeep, running to the store to pick up fasteners to actually install those parts was going to take ages. I wanted to be ready with any fastener I could possibly need, especially since — because I was building the Jeep from scratch — I had zero to start with. That vise and grinder-equipped workbench, those storage shelves, and those cases of fasteners were absolutely critical upfront purchases that would help me save time throughout the build.