We have seen rare vehicles here before. Whenever something is more of a special edition than a one-off type of rare vehicle, those don’t seem to get the love, but when that special edition combines the names Jeep and Hurst I hope that isn’t the case here. This rare, 1 of 100 1971 Jeepster Hurst Commando can be found here on eBay in Landing, New Jersey. The seller has a $16,500 buy-it-now price listed or you can make an offer.

I have read that there may have been up to 103 of the Hurst Commandos produced for Jeep and also that they may have been based on the 1970 Commando instead of the 1971 model. I’m not sure if any of that does anything to the value or the rarity that much, really. They certainly weren’t the most sporty-looking Hurst special editions, but the functional hood scoop and hood-mounted tach combo was a cool feature and it’s hard to argue with red and blue stripes on a white vehicle. “Champagne white”, to be exact.

This example isn’t perfect as you can see, but if it can be gotten for a good price maybe the next owner can restore it somehow and still stay below the $20,000-$25,000ish mark where a few of them have seemed to sell for. At $16,500 it isn’t going to happen. Here’s what it looks like behind the slightly-rusty rear hatch/tailgate. Here is the seller’s story of how they came to get this rare Jeep: “I purchased this Jeepster in 2017, from the third owner in KS, the original owner passed away in 1979 Chicago, IL It sat in his garage until his wife passed away early 2000. Her neighbor took care of her until her last days. The wife left everything house and all contents to the neighbor. The Jeepster was in it. The neighbor’s daughter ended up getting the Jeep, She kept it in her garage for many more years. ended up moving to KS and brought it with her. I bought the Jeep from her neighbor which by the way she ended up giving him the Jeep prior to moving to TX, he brought it back to life and drove it for about 200 miles.”

The interior looks to be in similar condition and most folks who haven’t seen a Hurst Commando before may have expected to see a manual transmission. Hurst = manual transmission for me, in general. This is an automatic but a three-speed manual would have been available with the legendary Hurst T-handle shifter. The striped seats are pretty cool, in my opinion, and they look good other than a few seam separations that hopefully could be repaired. The back seat looks great other than possibly some tearing in the black vinyl where it folds down.

There were no performance upgrades to the Jeepster Hurst Commando, other than maybe a tiny benefit from having a little wider set of tires. This engine is the famous Buick-sourced Dauntless 225 cubic-inch two-barrel V6 which would have had 160 hp. According to the seller, it “Runs very well and starts up the first time every time.” For a 4WD vehicle, 160 hp isn’t a lot of power but this isn’t a crazy Hurst race car, it’s basically a graphics package on an already-cool Jeepster Commando and it’s the one you want if you’re a collector. I hope that someone can grab this one and bring it back to like-new again, it’s a museum piece with so few of them around.