5 Bantam was a weird little company. It was founded originally to produce the British Austin Seven, a tiny, tinny, 13-hp runt of a roadster, under license. It soon went bankrupt because it was undersized, underpowered, and overpriced, whereupon it was resurrected as American Bantam, building a tiny, tinny, 19-hp runt with about the same results. By 1940, the company was essentially bankrupt, which made it desperate to find any kind of work in order to stay in business. Thus, when the army went looking for a scout car, Bantam grabbed on like a drowning man to a life preserver.
6 During 1940, the army sent invitations to bid on the new vehicle to 135 US manufacturers, including automobile and truck builders, plus specialty firms that produced vehicle bodies, chassis, or major components. It was the largest number of firms contacted by the army for a motor vehicle contract, and it expected to receive a large number of bids because the award was up to $175,000 for the initial prototype plus 69 additional vehicles with any changes the army required. However, in the end, only two companies submitted proposals: small-car builders American Bantam and Willys-Overland. Later, as the program matured, Ford joined the bidding.
7 Bantam initially thought it would be able to sell modified versions of its passenger cars to the army. The military even tested several of the Bantams, but in the end decided it need a new vehicle designed from the ground up. Not only that, but the army’s required design specifications for the first Jeep went beyond the technology of the day in 1940, which meant that it either had to change the specs or give up the program (eventually the army changed the requirements).
Initial specifications included a low body height, seating for three, a 20-hp engine, four-wheel-drive, a wheelbase of not more than 75 inches, and the capability of at least 50 mph on a hard surface, all of which could be achieved. However, the army also said that the vehicle had to weigh no more than 1,300 pounds and be able to haul at least 600 pounds, or almost half its own weight. These last two demands couldn’t be met using technology of the day, at least not in time to meet the army’s other requirements that the prototype use as many off-the-shelf components as possible and be ready for testing in 49 days!
The vehicle that is considered the first “Jeep” is the prototype made by Bantam Motors, seen here in 1941. Note the cycle front fenders; this is the only Bantam Jeep with this feature.
8 Bantam was broke and had long since laid off its engineering staff, so in order to actually come up with a Jeep design, it had to hire a freelance engineer. Independent engineer Karl Probst, a brilliant former Packard engineer, took the job despite his own misgivings. Bantam had told him that he would only be paid if they actually won the contract. But Probst was a true patriot and understood the importance of designing the right vehicle for the army.
Once Probst agreed, he packed a bag and immediately drove to Bantam’s plant in Butler, Pennsylvania. Miraculously, he managed to design the entire vehicle, create blueprints, and assign cost estimates in just three days.
9 As noted earlier, army specifications called for an overall weight of 1,300 pounds for the vehicle. When Bantam president Frank Fenn asked engineer Probst about the weight specification, Probst calmly replied, “Of course we can’t make that weight target, but neither can anyone else.” He was smart. From long experience designing cars and components, Probst knew that what the army was asking for was impossible, so he simply didn’t worry about it. In the end, the Bantam military car weighed around 1,850 pounds.
10 Bantam didn’t actually call its first vehicle a Jeep; the company dubbed it the Bantam Pilot Model. It later became known as the Bantam Mk I. The company produced 69 additional vehicles incorporating many improvements. These vehicles are known as the Mk II models (aka the Bantam BRC-60). The Bantam Pilot Model doesn’t seem to have survived (at least it’s never been found), but a highly skilled British enthusiast crafted a new one from scratch a few years ago, and it appears to be a perfect duplicate.
11 When the army opened the competitive bids for the initial prototype vehicle along with 69 follow-up vehicles, Bantam’s bid was $2,445.51 per vehicle for a total of $171,186. Willys-Overland actually bid less than that amount. So why didn’t Willys-Overland win the initial contract? Because Willys’ management had to admit that they couldn’t meet the army’s stated deadline for delivering the vehicles in 49 days; they said they needed 75 days.
Because the army wanted this new vehicle as quickly as humanly possible, it had set a penalty of $5 per day for every day past the 49-day deadline specified in the contract. That single factor allowed Bantam Motors to win the initial contract for what became the Jeep.
12 Although there had never been a lightweight four-wheel-drive car before, it took Probst and a handful of Bantam employees less than two months to build the first Bantam Jeep basically from scratch. However, it was a nerve-racking effort.
They needed to figure out how to modify Studebaker axles to work on the front-wheel-drive part of the Jeep. Three weeks before the deadline, the problem still hadn’t been solved, and Karl Probst privately admitted to a fellow engineer that they wouldn’t make it. However, in the end, American ingenuity worked out the problems, and the Bantam was finally completed and ready to go exactly one day before it had to be delivered to the army. Component suppliers were told that they would be allowed one hour each to road test the vehicle. Then it had to be delivered.
Teddy Roosevelt Jr. didn’t live to see the end of the war. He was the son of former President Theodore Roosevelt and the cousin of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Teddy went in with the first wave of troops on D-day despite being so crippled by arthritis he required a cane. This photo was taken shortly after the landing, mere weeks before he died of a heart attack.
13 Imagine this: Rather than shipping it in an enclosed trailer, the Bantam prototype was driven to the army’s test center at Camp Holabird, Maryland, from Butler, in western Pennsylvania. And this was in an era before major highways! It was a close call; the company met the army’s delivery deadline with only 15 minutes to spare.
So vital was the contract that the vehicle was driven by designer Karl Probst and Bantam president Frank Fenn. They started out slow to break in the engine, but they soon realized they weren’t going to make it in time unless they poured on the juice, so they began driving flat out across Pennsylvania.
14 Army Major Herbert Lawes, who had driven every military vehicle tested in the prior 20 years, test drove the first Bantam Jeep as soon as it was delivered to the army base. He declared, “This vehicle is going to be absolutely outstanding. I believe this unit will make history.”
15 After thorough testing by the army at the Maryland proving grounds, up and down many hills and through mud, sand, and muck, the military staff requested that the 69 additional vehicles ordered be fitted with engines of at least 40 hp. This forced Bantam to drop its own engine in favor of a Hercules-built four, which raised its costs for the vehicle and forced it to beef up the chassis, transmission, axles, and more.
The next series of Bantam Jeep vehicles were the BRC-60 pilot production vehicles, of which 69 were produced. The front fender is squared off and the body side is different from the Bantam Pilot Model.
16 Even though Bantam won the initial contract, the army asked for construction of competitive vehicles from Willys-Overland and Ford Motor Company because it worried greatly about Bantam’s ability to produce the volume of vehicles that might be needed. Bantam was, after all, just about the smallest automaker in America, and it was teetering on the verge of bankruptcy.
17 The Willys prototype was called the Quad; the Ford prototype was dubbed the Pygmy. They looked similar to the Bantam,