Press Release
Jeep was born out of the harsh necessities of battle
As war in
By early 1940 'Barney' Roos, engineering vice president with the Willys-Overland company, was far advanced with his ideas for a prototype 4x4 military car. The following year the US Army ordered 1,500 of the Willys cars, along with 1,500 rival Ford models and 1,500 4x4s from the American Bantam car company. There followed a punishing test programme as the competing brands were put through the mill by the US Army to see which model was up to the job.
Within a few months the choice had been made, the US Army won over by the Willys-Overland car's superior torque and greater horsepower.
World War ll proved the Willys car, soon dubbed the Jeep, in the toughest, grimmest, conditions conceivable. By 1945 more than 600,000 had been delivered to the Allied Armies. The Jeep carried troops, weaponry and supplies into every major theatre of war during the conflict.
Jeeps ferried the injured to safety as a make-shift ambulance, carried the guns that knocked out a fleet of fuel tankers en route to Rommel's armoured vehicles on the eve of the Battle of El Alamein, and served everywhere from the Battle of the Bulge in the Ardennes, to the snow fields of Iceland, to Guadalcanal with the US Marines.
The late
As an untiring military workhorse, the Jeep went everywhere, inspiring the motto: "The sun never sets on the Willys Jeep."
After the war it was clear that the outstanding strength, agility and sheer ruggedness of the Willys Jeep would prove a winner in peace-time 'civvy street'.
In 1946 a memo from Jeep makers Willys-Overland spelt out the marque's future: "The Jeep of the future is still evolving and will continue to evolve as new uses are found for it. The Jeep is an ever-changing functional vehicle. Its development differs from that of the conventional transportation vehicle in that it does not stop with transportation alone." That aim rings as true today as it did then.
The first civilian 'Universal' Willys Jeep, the CJ2A, appeared immediately World War ll ended. Soon derivatives such as a 4x4 pickup truck were proving the potential of the original design, and 1949 saw production begin of an all-steel Station Wagon featuring four-wheel drive and a six-cylinder engine, the forerunner of the modern-day Jeep Cherokee.
In 1953, Willys-Overland became Willys Motors when the company was bought by Henry J. Kaiser. In turn, American Motors Corporation bought the Kaiser Jeep Corporation in 1970.
The Jeep name was on a high in the mid '80s thanks to the launch in 1986 of the first Jeep Wrangler. The aim with Wrangler was clear: to improve the comfort, ride quality and appearance of the car, while preserving the durability and unrivalled off-road utility. They are virtues Jeep Wrangler lives by today.
The following year, 1987, the Chrysler Corporation acquired AMC, delighted to take ownership of the Jeep brand - 'the jewel in the deal'.
The Jeep Name
Thousands of words have been written about the origin of the Jeep name. As a pub quiz question, it is a corker.
Because the origins of the Jeep are so entwined with its military heritage, many believe the name Jeep came from a corruption of the US Army acronym GP, for General Purpose, then used for any quarter-ton front-wheel drive reconnaissance car.
Others say the name was lifted from the nickname used during the 1930s for the specialist trucks kitted out with equipment to drill wells in the American oil fields.
Then there is the Popeye strip cartoon alternative.
The legend of the Jeep, and speculations as to the roots of the Jeep name, grew so quickly even the authoritative and serious-minded Washington Post newspaper took a view. In 1944 the Post dedicated an editorial to the topic: "As to the origin of the monosyllable, Jeep. It first appeared as a generic name of an amiable and exotic creature of indeterminate sex, introduced about the middle of the 1930s in what was then a highly popular comic cartoon strip." So there.
Whatever the truth, the Jeep name is an icon, one of the most recognised and evocative brands in the world. So much so that in 1950 Willys-Overland registered Jeep as a global trademark. Today, Jeep is a registered trademark of DaimlerChrysler.
