But was yellow ever available as a factory color on the CJ-3B? Well, I have now seen at least one Jeep with what appears to be Arena Yellow as the original coat (see bottom of this page). And there is some evidence to suggest that Willys may have offered two shades of yellow on the 3B.
Click on any of the photos below, to jump to the places in The CJ3B Page where you'll find more photos and details on these built-up Jeeps.
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Because he's a Caterpillar mechanic, Brian Greif painted his 3B (above right) in Caterpillar Yellow. It appears very close in color to the illustration on one edition of the late 1950's CJ-3B brochure (below).
Two different yellows are found in the samples of Willys paint colors from the late 1950's and early 60's. Transport Yellow was introduced in 1955 and Arena Yellow in 1956. It's unclear exactly when they were dropped -- Transport Yellow appears to have survived until at least 1963 (although samples from that year show it as somewhat darker than in previous years.)
The existence of an edition of a brochure showing the CJ-3B in Transport Yellow (right) suggests that Willys thought the color would be popular, but there aren't many surviving examples. A 1961 model appears to have been custom-painted yellow originally, for a trenching company in New Zealand.
Eddie Stephens in New Mexico in 2004 found a 1961 CJ-3B which seems to have Arena Yellow as the original coat. Eddie said, "Appears it was painted red over the yellow (60K JPEG) and then white on the outside. See where I removed the screws on the ID plate." Eddie has since sold the Jeep to David Barfield (see 1961 Owners and Photos.)
Mark Dunlap now has a 1955 CJ-3B in Alaska which appears to have originally been Transport Yellow (see 1955 Owners and Photos.)
Randy Merrit's '62 3B and Rene Rodas and Dave Lindgren's '63 3B's are now painted yellow.
Craig Godfrey's '53 Shasta was a yellow cover photo for The CJ3B Page in 2003, before he restored it in green.
Richard Imholt's Bad Bee was on the cover in September 2005. More details on that one in Radical 3B's on the Rocks by Jim Allen.
And yellow was always a popular color for CJ-3B's built in Spain. -- Derek Redmond
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