Vincent Koekemoer, a local Jeep Willys owner, was recently offered R900,000 for his prized set of wheels which he spent the sum of R81,000 on.
While this represented a return on investment of over 1,000%, Koekmoer wasn’t quite ready to end his love affair with the rare Jeep.
Instead, he nearly made his wife divorce him when she hand-counted the cash he used to buy his next one, and today, he owns four of them.
Fulfilling a childhood dream
Koekemoer explains that owning a Willys has been a lifelong dream and when he was growing up, he used to go to auctions all over the Eastern Cape when the military was selling its old vehicles in hopes of scooping one up for a bargain.
Unfortunately, it never came to be that he owned one in his younger days, but the dream never died.
“I couldn’t afford them, but as it was, no one would even give me a chance to bid,” he said.
Eventually, Koekemoer gave up on auction hunting, matriculated from Muir College, went off to what was then PE Tech, got conscripted, and thereafter went to work in construction.
The bug had bitten deep, though, and it never let go.
He started trawling for Willys again soon after exiting the military, this time in the Eastern Cape’s Weekend Post, scouring the classifieds motoring swop column.
Each time he found one, however, he was disappointed in the condition of the 4x4s.
“They would have been gutted or modified, rebuilt in fibre glass, and the original engines replaced by others,” he said.
Once more, his dream was retired to the back of his mind.
Then, five years ago on one fateful evening, Koekemoer and a friend got chatting over a drink, and as all enthusiasts know, the conversation eventually got round to cars, and for Koekemoer, specifically the Willys.
This time he didn’t go to the newspapers but got cooking on pre-owned classifieds sites like Gumtree and OLX.
There was a hit in Cape Town, so he got his brother and sister-in-law to look. He bought the Willys, but it was in bad condition with the wrong engine, and it had been modified.
Then came a Willys in Patensie. It was in bits, but the parts were original, and Koekemoer pulled the trigger.
He spent all of R21,000 on the beat-up Jeep but committed to restoring it to its former glory.
Three years and about R60,000 later, his vision came to life. Every part was original. He had loosened, cleaned, greased, and tightened every nut and bolt. If he couldn’t get the parts sent to him from America, he’d make them himself.
“I grew up on a farm, I’m very hands-on, I do metal work, woodwork, you name it,” said Koekemoer.
He started taking his restored Willys to local fairs, starting with the George Old Car Show hosted by the Southern Cape Old Car Club.
In February 2024, on his third trip to George, someone offered him R900,000 for it, which he abruptly declined, stating he has no intention of selling… yet.
In short order, he now picked up another two Willys after a farmer from nearby Kirkwood phoned him to tell him he had two wrecks on his farm and asked if he could restore one of them.
“I said ‘yes’ on condition I could restore the second one and keep that one,” he said.
Today, Koekemoer’s fame as a Willys boffin has spread far and wide; he’s met Willys lovers from as far as Swakopmund in Namibia, Colesberg in the Northern Cape, Cape Town, and Plettenberg Bay.
“The best part of owning a Willys,” he says, “is the friends you meet.”
“The Jeep brand today is a passport to an aspirational lifestyle of freedom and adventure that creates the same level of passion and enthusiasm in today’s Jeep vehicle owners as the Willys does for Vincen, said Jeep head of brand Janus van Rensburg.
“We are in awe of what he has achieved, translating his passion into an incredible living testimony to our brand’s heritage – a great example of how our customers create their Jeep experiences; we just make the cars.”
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