If you’re lucky enough to live where road salt isn’t slathered out on the roads in the winter – I’m jealous. I’m assuming that several million other drivers of rusty vehicles are jealous, too. Hey, speaking of that, check out this 1979 Jeep J10 Honcho! This rugged 4×4, in both demeanor and condition, is listed on eBay with an unmet opening bid of $2,750 and it’s located in Belleville, Illinois.
The fender flares, stripes, and roll bar were all part of the Honcho package which was available from 1976 to 1983. Well, the fender flares were because the Honcho used the Cherokee Chief’s wide look. This Honcho is just a bit rusty and even the seller acknowledges it, although it would be impossible to hide that fact.
GA! Whenever you can actually see through a vehicle and it isn’t glass, there’s some corrosion. With time and money almost anything is fixable but whether it’s worth spending the time and especially the money is up to the next owner to decide. The seller says that it could easily make a daily driver and sometimes that’s all that us snow-bound rust-belt folks want in a winter vehicle. It’s hard to argue with Jeep’s 4×4 system for use as a winter vehicle.
The seller has this Honcho listed as having 86,000 miles and it looks like it’s lived a fairly rugged life for only having 86,000 miles. But on the other hand, 39 years with only 86,000 miles is hardly anything (2,205 miles a year) so maybe it was only used as a winter vehicle which would explain the rust? The all-important dash top looks good but there is work to do inside, too. The driver’s seat could use some new upholstery, or a seat cover if it’s going to be used as a winter vehicle. Kudos to the seller for including photos of both sides, the interior, and even an engine photo.
Here’s the engine, seemingly sponsored by Interstate Batteries as so many of them are. How would you like to have a penny for every one of those batteries that they sell in a year? For you trivia buffs, in 2017 Interstate Battery sold 18-million batteries (!) so that would be $180,000 at a penny a piece. Yeah, no wonder we see so many of them under hoods all over the world. But, back to the Honcho. The seller says that this 360 V8 “Starts and runs, holds good oil pressure (30 psi warm).” That’s more than I can say about myself most mornings. Is this Honcho worth the effort to restore or would you just use it as a winter vehicle?
winter driver in my area…
I would restore and drive in the summer mostly because up here in north Idaho the stuff they put on roads eat cars up fast…
All Jeep pickups had flared fenders from the introduction of this body style in the sixties.
I like these,all the way back to the early 60’s.
This would be great for winters here in Ohio,
but would have to do some serious rust repair/prevention
before I would feel ok with serious winter use.Price seems
great,even a bargain..-considering what late model rusty
p.o.s. trucks go for around here.Its a driver,at the very least.
That kind of rust on the body would make me very concerned about the frame and suspension points. This looks like a parts truck.
Looks like a challenging restoration but worthwhile. You don’t see those around much anymore. It’s likely got the Quadra-Trac full-time transfer case which was built by Borgwarner. There’s a limited-slip differential inside that can be locked up when four-wheeling gets really tough. Never heard a lot of negative reports on it other than the negative reports that came from other trucks using the NP203: Poor fuel economy. When I worked for GM I tended to turn a deaf ear to those complaints. Having a full-time 4×4 myself and hearing the reports from those with part-time, I found very little difference in the economy between the two. Maybe a mile to the gallon—not the five mpg that I often read/heard about….
Yep, in the 12-13 years I sold Jeeps, I never had a customer wanting a fuel efficient vehicle. On the shores of Lake Erie, we all wanted to be able to get through the nasty lake effect snow.
Hi John. I had a customer who was convinced that by installing a part-time conversion in his ’79 Jimmy, he would pay for it in less than a year just by the fuel he’d save. I all but refused to install it so he had another shop put it in (they were cheaper anyways). The one thing he didn’t do was read the operating instructions. If he did he would’ve read the part where he had to keep the transfer case locked in order to get lube to the top end of the case via the chain. He cooked it completely and it cost him an additional $1800.00 in parts to repair the damage. Needless to say we restored the transfer case back to full-time, and he went around ranting about how much money he COULD have saved if they (the builders of the part-time conversion) had made the operating instructions more legible….
I owned an ’81 J-10 for 24 years. Loved that truck! Was a real truck, and had, everything a truck should: FWD, manual transmission, lock-out hubs, real clutch, bench seat, rubber floor, crank windows, eight foot bed… The list goes on and on. The I-6 ran like a watch, but from a safety standpoint; I drove it way past when I should have (thanks to a friend who owned a service station, and a yearly courtesy look-the-other-way inspection).
Only thing that truck couldn’t do, was not rot.
Would own another in a minute, but not this one – Too far gone to bring back to original; which is what these rare FSJ’s really deserve.
Throw a Meyers or Western plow on it and clean your driveway and maybe a few neighbors which could help pay for the plow and gas.
Cliff Klaven sez, ” it’s a little known fact, the word “Honcho” is NOT of Spanish origin. It’s a Japanese word meaning “a person ( usually male) who, while not very important, is in charge of a small group of underlings”. I never knew that, and thought it was a silly name for a truck. Great plow truck. Check them spring hangers, mine rusted clear of the frame sending the leaf spring through the already rusted floor. They were good trucks, tho. Thirsty, but they all were, really. You didn’t buy a truck like this for gas mileage.
There’s still a lot of these aroundN.E. Texas, but the owners don’t let go cheep. No rust problems in this neck of the woods either. But you’ll have to get out in the country to find them. They don’t advertise much.
Awesome looking Jeep truck. Sadly, I live in a place where one drop of snow, and people get paranoid, and either start panicing, causing accidents, or they start dumping salt on the roads, which can be murder on a car’s body.