Mick Mitchell estimates that he has collected more than 400 Jeeps, although his last precise count stopped at 263. Now 85, the former owner of an architecture firm keeps the collection in Scottsbluff, Nebraska, where it has continued to grow since his teenage years. Nebraska Public Media recently featured the collection in a report.
More than 400 Jeeps fill one extraordinary private collection in Nebraska
One of Mitchell’s favorites is the M38, a postwar military Jeep that he also appreciates for the engineering solutions designed to simplify use and maintenance. Its 24-volt electrical system and protected components helped it cope with military service, while the accessible mechanical layout made repairs easier in the field.
The collection also includes equipment once used to teach soldiers how these vehicles worked. One training chassis contains a cutaway Go-Devil engine that allows viewers to watch the internal components move by turning the crankshaft manually. The setup helped explain basic mechanics to soldiers with little experience working on vehicles.
Several other off-roaders sit alongside the Jeeps, including an Austin Champ and a Suzuki Samurai, while a rare Willys MA represents one of the earliest stages in the history of the American military Jeep. The collection therefore documents technical differences across generations and manufacturers rather than focusing only on the most familiar models.
Mitchell prefers to preserve the vehicles largely as he found them, keeping the marks left by time and previous owners. He believes restoring every Jeep would make them too similar and erase the differences that keep the collection interesting. He does, however, protect the vehicles from rain to prevent corrosion from getting worse.
Mitchell used his professional experience to create the buildings that now house the collection after transforming a site that once served a used-car business. He previously ran a commercial architecture firm in Denver and later applied those skills to the spaces needed for his growing fleet.
His interest in Jeeps began with World War II newsreels that he watched as a child. He later bought his first one while still in school and used it around the family farm under a restricted driver’s license.
Decades of buying eventually produced the collection he owns today, and Mitchell hopes it can remain in the same place after him. His wish, as described in the report, is to keep the vehicles together in Scottsbluff rather than see a lifetime of collecting broken up and scattered.
