1942 Ford GPA: Unusual, rare military vehicle was designed to travel on land, in water

Many times when Bill Bloom drives his 1942 Ford GPA (General Purpose Amphibian) from his home in Shawnee to a car show or to the grocery store, he has to pay attention to every vehicle around him.

The sight of this Army vehicle on the road will cause the most focused driver to do a double take.

“Driving down the road is the hardest part,” Bloom said. “You really have to watch yourself and everybody else because people will be driving, looking and not paying attention to where they are going, and the next thing you know they are drifting into your lane. It gets quite a reception because you just don’t see them.”

Well, when the Army created the 1942 GPA, it was designed to also travel in water.

They were initially going to be used for amphibious operations but when they built them, they were a thousand pounds heavier than what they were supposed to be, Bloom said.

It sat lower in the water and didn’t do very well in open seas. They used them for river crossings in Europe. They were also used in the invasion of Sicily. The majority of them went to Russia in a lend-lease program.

Bloom figures the one he bought from a man in Overland Park in 1993 never left the United States.

“These are very scarce vehicles,” Bloom said. “To find one locally in your area is kind of rare.”

Bloom said about 12,000 of the 1942 GPAs were made, and only about 500 are left. Of that number, about 150 are drivable.

Bloom has one of them.

“We drive it all over,” Bloom said. “I haven’t put it in the water since I restored it. Each summer, I was going to but ran out of time.”

Bloom, 59, is patient. It took him five years to restore the 1942 GPA. When he bought the vehicle, it wasn’t in running condition. The body, he said, was in bad shape, too.

“Usually when you find them unrestored they are in pretty sad shape because they didn’t have a top,” Bloom said. “They were made to keep water out, so if they sat outside and it rained, there was no way for the water to run out. It is like a big bath tub. They fill up with water and rust out.

“A lot of sheet metal work had to be done on it. It was missing a lot of pieces.”

It took Bloom several years to find parts.

“The community that has them is kind of small so word gets out somebody has a part or is looking for a part, we all try to help each other out,” Bloom said. “Some people have extra parts.”

It helped that this wasn’t Bloom’s first endeavor restoring an Army vehicle. In all, Bloom has five Army vehicles in his garage that he has restored over the years, including his first restoration project, a 1953 Willys Jeep.

Bloom’s parents gave him and his brother each a jeep to restore. Bloom’s was the 1953 Willys.

“It was kind of a project to keep us occupied, off the streets and out of trouble,” said Bloom, who spent 15 years in the Army flying helicopters. “I finished it before I was 16 because I didn’t have a driver’s license.

“I think you have more appreciation of it because you have your sweat and time in it. It is like anything else – anything you put your sweat and time in, you are going to value it more.”

Bloom said it still runs. That first restoration project stuck with him.

“I have never been able to kick the habit,” he said. “Instead of getting rid of them, I keep adding to them.”

Of the five vehicles, the 1942 GPA is the most unusual. It was the perfect vehicle to use to get around on flooded streets back in the 1940s and 1950s.

There are some YouTube videos that show how the 1942 GPA operates in the water.

Bloom was happy that he was able to restore his vehicle to the point it can go in the water if he wants it to.

“It is a nice, satisfied feeling to look at your pictures beforehand and then look at the pictures afterwards and know that you did it,” Bloom said of the restoration.

Bloom said there are many other people around the world like him who enjoy preserving military vehicles.

“There is an international organization called the Military Vehicle Preservation Association that is in Independence (Mo.),” Bloom said. “There are people all over the world that belong to it and restore military vehicles.”

This story was originally published December 18, 2015 at 6:05 PM.