M38A1 CDN in goat pasture

[TonyRoper]

I had been looking for an old Willys flatfender for a little while, intending to use it for mountain roads and the occasional Saturday cruise. A few days ago, I ran across an advertisement for a "1952 or 1953 Willys" but the photo appeared to be an early CJ-5.

The Jeep was only three miles from home, so I went to take a look and ended up bringing it home. The title shows "Ford" as the manufacturer and the data plate was stuffed in a storage compartment.

I have attempted to find original markings below the driver's door, above the data plate, and on the front face of the passenger fender. It appears that most of the outer surface was stripped back to bare metal as light sanding revealed blue paint, then gray primer, then filler, then metal. Hidden surfaces do reveal olive drab paint.

The data plate is very hard to read, but appears to have a delivery date of "1-12-" and the serial number is illegible to my eyes.

I have not yet removed the fabricated front bumper to view any stamping on the front frame horn, but intend to do so soon.

From this limited information, can anyone point me in a useful direction? I intend to restore it to largely original appearance to include original markings. The engine has been swapped to a much later model so a 100 percent restoration would be impractical.