Harry
Buschert served the off-road community as an advocate and as
an inventor. Buschert played an instrumental role in the
founding of the California Association of Four Wheel Drive
Clubs and the Hemet Jeep Club. He also ran his own machine
shop where he developed items such as items such as wide
wheels, the positive action clutch linkage and conversions
for Jeeps including rear axels and auxiliary gas tanks.
Buschert was born in 1912. By the age of sixteen he had
become an apprentice machinist. In 1931 he began working for
the Burlington Rail Road. During World War II his machinist
skills were put to use in the Los Angeles Shipyard. After
the war he married Pauline, a young lady from Hemet,
California, where they settled down. In Hemet, Buschert
played the saxophone in local clubs and ran a machine shop
at the corner of Palm and Menlo Avenue. The machine shop,
known as Buschert’s, occupied half of the business the other
half a garage operated by Earl Powers.
In 1948 Buschert joined the first Hemet Jeep Cavalcade and
jumped in a jeep with Harvey Gibel at the Hemet Farmer’s
Fairgrounds. The first Cavalcade, sponsored by the Anza-
Borrego Trails Association and the Hemet Valley Chamber of
Commerce, began as a way to show the public the need to pave
the road between Hemet and Borero Springs. Over 400 Jeeps
and 800 passengers came out for the first event. They took
two days to travel down Coyote Canyon. Buschert would
participate and assist in running the events for years to
come. The event ran continuously until 1973. By 1973 the
movement pave the road had become obsolete, the high prices
of gasoline made the event too costly, and the perceived
impact of the event affecting public perception all led to
the its ending. The event took a fifteen year hiatus and
began again in 1988, Buschert took part in the anniversary
run.
Buschert worked actively over the years to help off-road
users maintain access to areas throughout California.
Buschert is credited with being a founding and active member
of both the Hemet Jeep Club founded in 1948 and the
California Association of Four Wheel Drive Clubs (CA4WDC)
founded in 1959. The CA4WDC elected him their president in
the early 1960s and again in 1972. In the 1970s he served as
an advisor to the National Safety Council representing the
interest of four-wheelers and playing a key role in the
development of the Off Highway Vehicle safety guidelines.
Taking safety seriously he also worked as the Chief
Technical Inspector for the United States Auto Club and did
inspections at events throughout California as well as the
Indy 500 and Pikes Peak Hill Climb in Colorado. He worked to
develop programs such as “Adopt- a- Trail”, “Adopt- a –
Highway” and the Imperial Dunes Clean-Up Project. He
believed in the mantra of “leaving no trace” and used his
position at the clubs he worked with to teach other users to
respect the trail. By respecting the trail he saw the
opportunity to maintain continual use.
Through his practical experience as an avid jeeper, his
technical expertise as a machinist and through brain
storming sessions with his friends Howard Miller and Bud
Jackson, Buschert developed a long list of inventions which
moved technology forward for off-road users. He made
modifications to Jeeps which would be reflected in years to
come in production vehicles. He modified a CJ5 with an
elongated wheelbase creating a vehicle similar to the first
CJ7. He widened tires to twice the size that was available
at the time, with the reasoning that a wider tire would not
cut into the land allowing the user to travel with less
impact and over more varied terrain including deep sand. He
modified springs on the Jeep utilizing springs intended for
larger vehicles providing better articulation for the Jeep
than the military spring which came stock with the vehicle.
In all he made a number of innovations which made traveling
by Jeep safer and capable of traveling over more challenging
terrain than ever before.
Sources:
Author Interview with Ray Moon, June 2006.
Brian Fusiler Notes on Harry Buschert
Jennings, Bill. “Original Jeep Cavalcade put Hemet on the
Map.” Desert Magazine. July 1979.
Straely, Dana. “Jeep History Recalled by Buschert.” Hemet
News, 18 February 1990.
Archival materials provided courtesy of Yolanda Binndels of
the Hemet Jeep Club.
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