1974 Jeep CJ-5 Is Junkyard Treasure in Colorado

Colorado car graveyards have plenty of Jeeps in stock, including some from the Willys-Overland and Kaiser-Willys eras. While I find DJ Dispatcher "Mail Jeeps" on a regular basis here, examples of the Jeep CJ tend to hold their value well enough to avoid a junkyardy fate. But you just never know what you'll find in a Centennial State junkyard, and I spotted this CJ-5 in a yard just outside of Denver recently.

The Jeep CJ goes way back, to a time when Willys-Overland saw that World War II would be ending soon and civilians might want to buy street-ready versions of the vehicle that helped the Allies crush the Axis. The CJ-5 version was built from the 1954 through 1983 model years, after which it was replaced by the Wrangler.

The American Motors Corporation bought Jeep from Kaiser in 1970, and so the CJ-5's engine choices in early 1974 (the build tag shows this was one of the first CJ-5s to roll off the Toledo line as a 1974 model) were both Kenosha powerplants: a 232-cubic-inch (3.8-liter) straight-six and a 304-cubic-inch (5.0-liter) V8. This one has the straight-six.

The transmission is a four-speed manual, and the controls are simple even by mid-1970s standards.

There's some rust, but nothing too lethal. Why didn't anyone rescue this valuable machine before it got here?

As one does, I brought with me a 1940 Agfa B2 Speedex film camera loaded with insane-high-contrast document film on the day I photographed this Jeep.

The ultimate get-up-and-go vehicle!

It's the toughest four-letter word on wheels, which tells trails to get lost. 21st-century Jeeps seem effete by comparison.

I find plenty of DJ "Mail Jeeps" in Colorado junkyards, but CJs are very rare in such places.

The grille was attached when this Jeep arrived at the junkyard, but a customer had bought it by the time I got here.

The Colorado collector plates show that its registration expired in 2018.

The very low sequential production number on the build tag (partially obscured by a Craig speaker) shows that this was among the first CJ-5s built for the 1974 model year.

It was built at Toledo Assembly, now owned by Stellantis and on the original site 114 years after Willys-Overland began building cars there.

The engine is an AMC straight-six, which stayed in production all the way through the 2006 Wrangler.

If this is the original engine (which is possible), it's a 232-cubic-inch (3.8-liter) example rated at 100 horsepower and 185 pound-feet. Later in the 1974 model year, the 258-cubic-inch version became the base CJ-5 engine. A 304-cubic-inch (5.0-liter) AMC V8 was available as an option.