Most of us associate the great name of Hurst Performance with being on muscle cars from the 1960s and 1970s, or maybe it’s just me who thinks that when I think of Hurst. Here’s a vehicle that I wouldn’t normally associate with a performance company: a 1971 Jeepster Commando Hurst Edition. The seller has it listed here on eBay in beautiful Lexington, South Carolina and the bids are at $2,800 with the reserve not being met yet.
We have only seen three Hurst Jeepsters Commandos here on Barn Finds over the years and this is the only one that was in pretty rough shape. If I wouldn’t have lost $1,000,000 in my cryptocurrency investments over the last month (cough) (I’ve never had any cryptocurrency), I’d buy this and bring it to the best restoration shop in the country with a giant The Price Is Right-sized check and have them go nuts on bringing it back to like-new condition.
The Hurst Jeepster was made for only one year, 1971, and depending on the source, they made somewhere between 65 and 100 of them, although the seller says 150 were made. It’s hard to tell here but you can see that most of the body used to be white which is the only color the Hurst edition Jeepster came in: white with red and blue stripes. This example will be a labor of love for the next owner as it needs a full nut-and-bolt restoration. The seller did include photos showing some of the rust issues and the underside.
The photos aren’t the best in this listing, being mainly four overall exterior photos and then a bunch of detail photos. They came in both flavors, automatic and manual, and this is the manual version – four-wheel-drive was standard. Part of the Hurst package was an 8,000 RPM tachometer on the hood and I believe the seller shows a photo of the hood scoop portion of that, but there is no tach. There were really no performance enhancements with the Hurst edition if you don’t count wider tires as being a performance enhancement.
Out of all the photos, there isn’t one engine photo which is always a head-scratcher, but there appears to be a radiator on the rusty floor in the photo above so let’s use that one. There should be a Buick-sourced V6 under the hood and the seller says that they haven’t even tried to turn it over but the bidders don’t seem to be worried about that, or about the rust, or missing parts, or anything. Have any of you heard of the Hurst Edition Jeepster?
Heah I got a good one for you, How about a pic of the Hurst shifter.
Nobody’s going to haul the mail without that
Looks like the original Hurst “T” handle shifter has been replaced with a white plastic ball. And this would have been a 3-speed gearbox. It’s going to be a challenge to find the correct tachometer. The hood scoop is shown on top of the original parts box, so it’s my guess that someone made off with the original hood scoop & tach, and the owner managed to find a NOS scoop. While it not too rusty to restore, it has lots of rust-thru on various small places, and also all along the right rear side window.
All Hurst Jeepsters had a metal plate attached to the firewall, it was marked “Special Sales Order No.” with the sequential Hurst ID number. Problem is, these plates were not affixed with rivets, but adhesive strips, and few survive today. Without that Hurst plate, it’s hard to prove it’s a genuine Hurst, as it appears the factory didn’t keep records pertaining to which cars were selected for the conversion. That said I believe this is a real Hurst Jeepster Commando, and it’s one of only a few manual transmission 4WD versions.
I wouldn’t be surprised to find Dennis Collins bidding on this rare Jeep.
Mine
labor of love is an apt descriptor as some 1 will need extra to stay focused enuff to bring this 1 back. Been done many times, tho. No real incentive in ‘hurst edition’ cept w/the real afficianados. Great site on net for the jeepster/camandos. I like these better than the ’48/50 (no 4WD I think) 1st gen but either is great with a small lift (see ‘worldwide’ as example). There was even an HDI model (contracted in Spain) w/stepped glass roof, LHswinging rear dor, and Perkins 4.154 (2.7L) diesel (a la World Cab or Alaska Postal w/the scrambler).
Auction update: this one ended at $5,300 and no sale.