The Mad Hat Man said:

i think yu iz thunking Willys jeeps

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j.i.wilson said:

I hesitate to add anything to the brill history given by The Mad Hat Man, so, anyway, here goes......

I heard that the original vehicle was known as a general purpose vehicle. This was shortned to GP which became..........

I bet someone knows different!

Ian

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The Mad Hat Man said:

Willys-Overland trademarked the word jeep after World War II and it passed to the Kaiser corporation in 1953 when Kaiser Motors bought out Willys-Overland and changed the name to Willys Motor Company. Willys changed name again in 1963 to Kaiser-jeep Corporation.

The Willys name was dropped altogether in 1965 by Kaisers who went on to become the American Motors Corporation in 1970. In 1987 the jeep trademark passed to the Chrysler Corporation and finally to DaimlerChrysler AG following the buyout of Chryslers by the Stuttgart, Germany based outfit in 1998. Jeep® is now a registered trademark of Chrysler.

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ratty said:

I'm trying to make my mind up if you is a geek, anorak or google slut?

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The Mad Hat Man said:

i think yu iz thunking Willys jeeps.

The jeep was produced in response to a 1940 tender request for an initial 70 vehicles by the US Army Quartermaster corps. The companies tendering were required to produce a prototype four wheel drive quarter ton payload vehicle weighing less than 1300 pounds within an incredible 49 days. The American Bantam Car and Willys Overland Inc were the only two of the 135 invited companies to respond and 47 days after tendering, Bantam delivered their prototype to the army for testing. Willys in the meantime had requested an extension to 120 days due to delivery issues with axle parts and thus, along with observers from Ford, had a golden opportunity to view the early testing of the Bantam.

The Bantam tested out reasonably well, but reservations were expressed about its power as well as the ability of the Bantam Co to supply the number of vehicles that would be required by the army following the initial small batches.

The test Bantam was followed in late 1940 with the delivery of the first Willys Quad on 13th November and ten days later with the prototype Ford Pygmy. The Willys was some 500lbs heavier than the Bantam but outperformed it thanks to the Quads powerful 'Go Devil' 60 horsepower engine. Performance on the Ford model was good as well so the army decided to order 500 of each model for field testing...the rest is history..

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