Jeep Off-Road (Gallery)

Jeep Gallery

The Jeep is greater than the sum of its parts. Its DNA makes the Jeep a genetic freak in the automotive world. Can you name one other brand that’s outlived four parent companies? The Jeep pulse still beats after more than 65 years, unlike former progenitors Willys, Kaiser, AMC, and Chrysler (counting the Teutonic DaimlerChrysler as a different entity from the AMC-absorbing, all-American Iacocca/Lutz/Eaton company).

Jeep scholars know that the original military Jeep was actually conceived by Bantam. However, the government awarded its 1/4-ton 4×4 reconnaissance vehicle contract to Willys-Overland Motors, later enlisting Ford to help meet increased production demands. This gives Jeep perhaps the bushiest-branched family tree in all of autodom: Bantam, Willys, Ford, Kaiser, AMC/Peugeot, Chrysler, and DaimlerChrysler.

Until recently, the Jeep’s history was, well, documented. It’s now well documented, thanks to researchers and writers such as Jim Allen who’ve identified and resolved many of the discrepancies between “official” records and firsthand accounts by former Toledo-based Willys-Overland employees and military veterans.

Military History

To make a long story somewhat shorter, the Jeep’s lineage dates back to at least World War I. General “Black Jack” Pershing shipped some Jeffrey “Quad” 4×4 trucks to France, having previously used these vehicles to search for Pancho Villa in Mexico. The army then embraced the effectiveness of an off-pavement vehicle that ran on tires, not tracks. By the 1930s, Marmon-Harrington 4×4 converted Ford trucks that sold the army on the value of four-wheel drive.

Another army concern was the size of the moving target. The 1937-1939 Howie-Wiley “Belly Flopper” went overboard in this respect. Literally a low-profile vehicle, the Belly Flopper got its nickname from the soldiers’ riding position: prone on a flat deck between a fore-mounted machine gun and an engine at the rear.

After World War II broke out, the army released specs for its proposed 1/4-ton 4×4 reconnaissance vehicle: 80-inch wheelbase, 47-inch track width, 600-pound payload, overall weight of 1,300 pounds, and 49 days to deliver a prototype. Only three of the then-135 American car companies bid on the project: Bantam, Ford, and Willys-Overland.

The first test vehicle, built by Bantam, was delivered to the army proving ground at Camp Holabird, Maryland, on September 23, 1940. More than 2,600 Bantam Reconnaissance Cars (BRC-40s) were subsequently built in 1941, after which the company quit the automobile business. Willys’ Quad model won the military contract, primarily due to its impressive “Go Devil” L-head four-cylinder engine. Ford’s Pygmy had the best overall design, and many of its specs were integrated into the Willys MB–the vehicle that would launch the Jeep mystique worldwide.

The Universal Word

Linguists claim that okay is the word that’s most known worldwide. Fifty years ago, Jeep was the universal word. At the end of World War II and throughout the Korean and Vietnam conflicts, people in all corners of the earth became familiar with the Jeep Universal, the short-wheelbase vehicle that General George C. Marshall called “America’s greatest contribution to modern warfare.” That’s quite a compliment coming from a man who was army chief of staff during the Manhattan Project and was influential in initiating atomic warfare.

Beloved World War II correspondent Ernie Pyle lavished similar praise on the Jeep before being killed in combat in 1945: “The Jeep–Good Lord, I don’t think we could continue the war without it! It does anything. It goes anywhere. It’s faithful as a dog, strong as a mule, and agile as a goat.”

The origin of the Jeep name for the 1/4-ton four-wheel-drive military general-purpose reconnaissance vehicle used to be debated. A popular myth had World War II GIs slurring GP–an acronym for “general purpose” that was apparently applied to everything from toothpaste to underwear–to create Jeep. Another left-field explanation had Jeep coming from the GPW, Ford’s version of the Willys MB.

The actual word undoubtedly came from a character in the popular Thimble Theater Starring Popeye comic strip. Cartoonist E. C. Segar introduced Eugene the Jeep on March 16, 1936. Eugene’s supernatural powers included teleportation, the ability to go anywhere anytime. (Many Jeep clubs use Eugene as their mascot. Mile-Hi Jeep Club Hobo Jeepers have several of the strips featuring Eugene on their website; see the Appendix for the URL.)

Eugene’s go-anywhere ability resulted in various industrial and four-wheel-drive vehicles receiving the nickname Jeep in the late 1930s. National guardsmen reportedly referred to a Minneapolis-Moline 4×4 tractor conversion as a Jeep at a 1940 testing session in Camp Ripley, Minnesota. The 1940-1941 1/2-ton Dodge Command Reconnaissance truck was also called a Jeep while the 1/4-ton version was the Peep; 3/4-ton Command Cars were Beeps (for “big Jeeps”).

By 1942, the name applied only to the 1/4-ton bobtail 4×4 vehicle. Esteemed automotive writer Granville King, who served in the army during World War II and claimed to be in a foxhole a couple hundred yards from Pyle when sniper fire killed the war correspondent, spelled out the name debate in his book The Jeep Bible:

In early 1941, we had all those crazy Pygmys, BRCs, and Quads rushing about the country, but none were called “Jeep” at the time. The army had some 1/2-ton Dodge Command Recon Trucks they called “Jeeps,” it is said. And so old-time sergeants called the new breed “Peeps.” Red Hausmann, test driver for Willys, always called his rig a Jeep because he said it “shouldn’t be mixed up with those funny Bugs, Midgets, BRCs, and such at Camp Holabird.”

Although King privately admitted to occasionally massaging the facts for dramatic effect in his writings, he was always adamant about the origin of the name Jeep in personal correspondence and conversation, even when conventional wisdom still subscribed to the GP explanation.