1948 MONROE HYDRAULIC IMPLEMENT LIFT FOR WILLYS UNIVERSAL FARM JEEP PROMO MOVIE XD48144
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Made in 1948 by the Monroe Auto Equipment Company, “Revolution in Pleasantville”, showcases the Monroe Hydraulic Implement Lift, which could turn a Willys “Universal Jeep” into a farm tractor. Barry Thomas, who also rescued this film and worked with Periscope Film to preserve it, researched the story behind it. The film was an outgrowth of two developments. First, the Willys company that emerged from WWII was threatened by the fact that surplus military jeeps were plentiful. It hoped to persuade farmers to buy a new product, a “Universal Jeep” that was much better suited to farming. (At the time only one in five American farmers owned a tractor or a pickup truck, so the opportunity seemed quite real.) Second, the Monroe company (makers of the famous shock absorbers) had purchased the Newgren farm implement company. Monroe saw an opportunity to sell both hydraulic lifts and farm implements, and created a “Revolution in Farming” ad campaign to promote them. The film was produced by Wilding, features a script written by Harry Grabow and was directed by Lou Kramer.
The film begins with images of the Jeep in WWII and shows how a young man named Don fell in love with the military version and decided to buy a surplus one for use on his family farm (1:30). He’s met with frustration (2:15) as it won’t properly pull a plow. He visits a Willys-Overland dealer (2:18), who shows him a brand-new Universal four wheel drive Jeep. At (2:51) the Monroe Hydraulic Lift is shown, as well as its design and operation. At (4:38) the Lift’s crucial ability to create down-pressure on a plow is shown. At (5:59) the Willys-Overland plant in Toledo, Ohio is shown with Universal Jeeps emerging from the assembly line, all with the NHL factory installed. At 7:20, an instructor shows the control aspects of the MHL and sees various implements including plows, mowers, and post-hole diggers as well as a buzz-saw, road breaker, and earth mover. The implements are then demonstrated. At 9:40, farmer Don becomes a new Willys dealer to bring the “revolution” to his home town. At 10:49, he stages a demonstration for local townspeople. A series of filmed demonstrations follow, with a Universal Jeep laying down a furrow for planting, leveling equipment, cultivating corn, using a scoop to do earth moving and ditch digging, road building and more. At 19:23 the Jeep is used to dig a post hole and at 21:06 the saw is attached to make a mill. The film concludes with Don wrapping up his demonstration, and a sales pitch for the products that were shown.
The Jeeps shown in the film are military Jeeps, the MB or GPW, shown in the wartime footage and in Don’s early farming attempts. The film also features the first civilian model, the CJ-2A. The CJ-3A model appeared in 1949, with minor changes retaining the same engine as the MB and CJ-2A, and CJ-3B “high hood” was introduced in 1953 to accommodate the overhead valve engines. Early CJ-5s (1954-65) could still be equipped with the hydraulic implement lifts and PTOs. All of those were marketed as the Farm Jeep. The manufacturer’s suggested retail price for the 1946 CJ-2A was $1,241 ($16,011 today). A competitor, the Ford 8N tractor, could be purchased for just a bit more money -- $1504.5 (in 1952).
In the end, the Farm Jeep concept failed to catch on and was discontinued
The complete story of the importance of this movie to Farm Jeep history and how the film was rescued by Barry Thomas is available at www.farmjeep.com/revolution-i...
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as a new farm owner with a big tractor I am very impressed with this video and the tools they were promoting.
The problems they addressed are still the issues we have today on the farm, tilling, cutting, road work, etc
Clarkson?
@@zeusapollo8688 na kaylib
This film takes me back to Grandpa on the farm had this jeep and the implements, farmed 160 acres for eons.
When I was growing up in the 60’s, the FCC required that TV stations dedicate part of their programming to community based issues. So, every morning at 4 or 5 am, the NY and CT affiliates ran federally funded programs like “Modern Farmer” or “Sunrise Semester” for the benefit of the farmers in local communities. The only problem was that local farmers were already working at 5am!
“Modern Farmer” was a LOT like this infomercial for Monroe/Willys. They were heavy on B&W visuals, with no accompanying music and very little narration. As a 3 or 4 year old, I loved it! However, my parents hated hearing the TV come on 2 hours before their alarm clock went off!
I'm sold on it!
Farming with a jeep really caught on, uh, never heard of it.
Glad you stopped by. If you enjoyed the film, we would suggest watching another Periscope Film movie titled "1954 Jeep Promo Film The Jeep Family of 4-Wheel...." You will see a number of familiar scenes...
Think of the TV show
" Green Acres." When Oliver Wendell Douglas was made aware of this farming implement, he said " It's no Hoyt-Clagwell ."
Why can’t commercials be whole TV Episodes anymore? Just think of an episode of HOUSE telling me about why the Purdue Pharma’s new anti-anxiety medication is going to fix all my problems.
They still exist. They are called infomercials.
laters..... im off to buy a jeep
I wonder if the Monroe Hydraulic company is the same company that makes shock absorbers today.
The answer is yes. This is mentioned in the description.
@@PeriscopeFilm thanks for the reply.
@@andyZ3500s the very same. Monroe wanted someway to show case, OK profit from, what they had learned from making hydraulic systems for WWII tanks and hydraulic bomb bay doors
@@FarmJeep never knew what monroe was doing in the war effort thanks.
@@andyZ3500s Monroe also made lots and lots of shell casings for the war effort as well. They also made hydraulic stuff for the military.
I wonder what Detroit thought of this? Massey Ferguson was Detroit based and Ford, well was Ford. And who could give this a thumbs down?
5 thumbs down from tractor dealerships.
It wouldn't have been a total loss. The Munro system was very similar to that on Ford & Ferguson tractors. Ford & Ferguson implements could also have been used on the Jeep. Mind you, for Newgren the converse is also true.
The biggest reason this didn't catch on was that the Jeep couldn't be geared low enough to go tractor slow. The Jeep was too fat.
What is your source for this information?
Also the visibility to whatever you were pulling was horrible
After a year with the Jeep and constant fluid leaks, Don decided to sell John Deere tractors instead and used his Jeep to go to the beach on weekends.
So you owned one also?
The idea wasn't stupid, it's just that American farmers had better farming solutions (tractors) available for not much more money. German farmers, working in a devastated economy and thus less well-funded than American farmers, used a lot of ex-military Schwimmwagens for farm work after the war. Of course, it helped that the military Schwimmwagen (unlike the military Jeep) already had a takeoff from the engine (on the Schwimmwagen, it was intended to run the propeller). That takeoff could be repurposed for all kinds of things, depending on the farmer's needs, imagination, and skill at making do.
Of course, I also have to wonder if it would have been more successful if it handled standard implements, instead of being tied (at least, so the film suggests) to the Newgren implement line. Given that the Jeep's big advantage vs. a tractor was cost, and buying all new implements would tend to throw away that advantage, maybe it's not so surprising that it flopped. (All the more so given the Jeep's disadvantages in the tractor role that other folks have mentioned.)
The film was part of an ad campaign - www.farmjeep.com/revolution-in-farming/ All Farm Jeeps with hydraulic lifts could use any Ford-Ferguson 3-point implements. In 1948, if a farmer wanted a tractor with a 3-point hitch, he had a choice of a Ford, a Ferguson - or a Jeep!
The Jeep PTO ran off the end of the transmission, giving you 3 forward and 1 reverse speeds. The latter made getting a stuck post hole digger freed as simple as putting the PTO in reverse. Because of the multiple speeds - and reverse - the Jeep made an excellent mobile power unit.
@@FarmJeep Ah, that makes a lot more sense! Thank you for pointing that out!
Curious - I googled for a while and couldn't find anything about post-war Schwimmwagens. Any pointers?
Don shut up and take my money!
Get a tractor.