GPW 270351 came to me with her original hood. I sanded down the post-war paint to find USA hood number 20735727 S on the driver’s side. The passenger side number was obliterated when the PO used bondo to cover the severe hood dents on that side of the jeep. Tom Wolboldt has confirmed that 20735727 is the original number.
All Ford GPW hood numbers were painted in blue drab throughout the war. Willy’s primarily used blue drab, but switched to flat white towards the very end of production in 1945. The reason why blue drab was used is that the photography of the day was primarily black and white. The flat blue drab color photographed quite similarly to olive drab, so that the USA numbers were hard to read. This then would have made it more difficult for our WW2 enemies to photograph the jeeps and use their intel to distinguish unit strength and location. Obviously, we can read the hood numbers on period WW2 black and white photos, so the system wasn’t perfect. In Europe, once the Allies had gained a strong foothold and numerical superiority, it was common to replace the 2″ blue drab hood numbers with 3″, or larger, white numbers for easier reading. This is why Willys changed to white at the factory at the end of production.
Many people confuse the USA number with a jeep’s serial number. They are loosely correlated, but we cannot determine an exact USA number from the serial number unless the jeep is found in a record. The Army Quartermaster Corps assigned a specific range of USA numbers to each contract with Willys or Ford. After the jeeps rolled off the production line and were test driven, they were parked in a depot yard. An Army acceptance officer, along with a paint crew, then went up and down the rows of jeeps parked for that day and painted the USA numbers in consecutive order, Because the jeeps were not parked by order of serial number, it’s was common to see jeeps with slightly lower serial numbers get higher hood numbers, and vice-versa.
By the way, all WW2 jeeps (1/4 ton trucks) have a hood number which begins with “20”. It’s one of my pet peeves to see a WW2 jeep painted in some other way, especially those purported to be original or a full restoration.
GPW 270351 was built in Dallas and it would appear that the font used at Dallas differed from other factories. The dots in U.S.A. are square and the height of the letters is 2 inch. The numbers are located 1/2″ from the bottom the of the hood. The “2” which begins the sequence is located approximately 13″ from the front of the hood and 20″ from the rear. The S is located two number spaces from the end of the 7, and the right edge of the S is located 31″ from the front of the hood and 2.75″ from the rear.
Here are five photos of my original numbers with a tape measure anchored on the edge of the hood.
I purchased my stencils from Scott Watson at Ron Fitzpatrick Jeep Parts. Overall, I’m very happy with them. The original length of the numbers and S are 17.75″ and Scott’s are 16.75″, so they’re about an inch too short. The font’s are a good match, except for the “5”, which has an edge cut off, and the “A”, which is more squat in the original. I decanted Ron’s Blue drab paint from the rattle can, then thinned with acetone and sprayed through a Badger airbrush at 20 psi. Here are the driver’s and passenger’s sides. Fitting the driver’s side grease gun bracket screws into the numerical sequence is always tough. I think I managed to get this one fairly close.
Restoration of 1945 Ford GPW 270351 