The Ford GP proposal was well built but underpowered and did not perform as well as the Willys or even the Bantam.
The little Bantam, with just 40 hp available, had the lowest overall weight, and thus performed very well. Because of that, the Bantam remained a strong contender for the main contract for 15,000 vehicles. However, army officers still worried about Bantam’s ability to deliver large volumes of vehicles in an emergency.
The first Jeep proposal by Willys was the 1941 Quad. Reportedly two were built, but neither has survived, though at least one was still around in the mid-1950s.
18 When the army expressed its disappointment with the Willys Quad’s weight, Willys-Overland management realized it needed to have its engineers redesign the prototype to reduce weight or it would certainly lose the big contract. They came up with a new model called the Willys MA that weighed a few ounces less than the army’s revised weight goal of 2,150 pounds.
The simplest way to reduce the weight would have been to install a lighter engine, but that would have eliminated Willys’ one big advantage: power. So instead of doing that, the weight reduction was accomplished by completely redesigning the body and chassis, cutting many pounds in the process.
Engineers also cut the length of screws and bolts used in assembly, used smaller fasteners where possible, and specified higher-strength lower-weight steel in the frame and body panels. Barney Roos even weighed the paint used on each vehicle, deciding (according to legend) that one coat would have to do.
The redesigned vehicle made the weight requirement, though one officer joked that if dust had settled on the Willys it would have gone over the limit. With its potent Go-Devil engine in the lighter chassis, Willys easily outshone both Ford and Bantam and won the contract.
The Willys MA was an improvement over the Quad, and 1,555 were produced for the army. However, the MA was significantly over the weight limit imposed by the military, so Willys’ engineers set to work reducing its weight.
19 Despite having invented the Jeep, Bantam Motors was given contracts for fewer than 2,800 units in all. After that, it was locked out of further orders, not even being allowed to be one of the backup, or supplemental, suppliers, as Ford was. The company was given contracts to assemble military trailers instead. After the war, Bantam did not return to building automobiles.
This Ford GP is undergoing tests at Fort Hood, Texas.
20 Okay, so the big question that everyone asks is this: Where did the Jeep name come from? Over the years, I must have been asked this question a couple of dozen times. The fact is that people can’t seem to agree on it. One thing that I can verify is that the Jeep name existed years before the well-known vehicle first appeared, though it wasn’t capitalized. The name came about as a slurring by soldiers of the initials GP, which is military speak for a “General Purpose” vehicle. The Jeep name had been around for years, mostly in military circles. In the 1930s, a motorized military tractor, nicknamed jeep, was used to haul big guns, along with various other military trucks and vehicles. There was even a small military plane nick-named Jeep.
21 The only civilian use of the Jeep name prior to World War II that I’ve been able to find was for a fictional creature named “Eugene the Jeep” that appeared for a time in the popular cartoon strip “Popeye.” Eugene the Jeep was a mysterious animal with magical abilities, including being able to get out of any situation and to go through any obstacle. Eugene usually proved to be invaluable to Popeye and Olive Oyl, often leading them on fantastic adventures and getting them out of dangerous situations.
Initially, Willys produced its Jeep MAs alongside its passenger cars, as seen here, but by mid-January 1942 only Jeep vehicles were in production.
22 So how did the Jeep name come to be associated with Willys-Overland? In February 1941, Willys-Overland’s public relations people showed off the company’s new MB military scout car (the successor to the Willys MA) to a group of reporters. Journalist Katharine Hillyer was driven up and down some steep hills in a Willys MB by veteran Willys test driver “Red” Hausmann.
Visibly impressed, Hillyer asked, “What’s the name of this thing?”
Hausmann replied proudly, “It’s a Jeep!” using the military GP slang.
So Hillyer wrote her story using that name, and it was picked up by newspapers across the country. The Jeep name soon came to stand for the 4x4 product produced by Willys-Overland.
A Willys MA shows off its stuff in September 1941. This appears to be at the front steps to the Willys headquarters in Toledo, Ohio.
23 In later years, there was a great deal of controversy about who owned the Jeep name; after all, it had been created by army personnel. During the war, Willys-Overland used some clever advertising to convince people to forever link the Willys and Jeep names together. The company used headlines such as “WILLYS builds the JEEP,” and you really had to squint to see the words between Willys and Jeep. After the war, everyone wanted the Jeep name, including the army, Willys, Bantam, etc.
The situation went on for years, but in the end the question was settled by James F. Holden, a lawyer. He filed a lawsuit on behalf of Willys-Overland to win the exclusive right to the Jeep name. The Jeep name has since passed on to the many successive owners of the company that builds Jeeps.
24 Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA, Jeep’s current parent company) is fiercely protective of the Jeep name, and rightfully so. The name was copyrighted many years ago, so whenever it appears in print it must be capitalized, Jeep. That’s because Jeep is a noun, and never an adjective or verb. It’s not supposed be used to classify a variety of vehicles, such as “jeep-like vehicles” and cannot be used to describe a vehicle that’s not a genuine Jeep; in other words, you can’t advertise a Ford Explorer as a Ford Jeep or a Ford jeep (unless you like talking to angry lawyers). You should never say or write that you went “jeeping”; the correct way to describe an off-road adventure is to say you went four-wheeling. Got it?
These are American troops of the Patton’s Fifth Army liberating the town of Vergato, Italy.
25 The new Jeep had several nicknames: Jeep, Peep, Blitz-Buggy, and the GI’s Friend. Soldiers often bestowed their Jeeps with names. One Willys Jeep, which saw action on Guadalcanal, was dubbed Old Faithful by the Marines who used it. Old Faithful was officially retired on October 13, 1942, and enshrined in the Marines Corps Museum at Quantico, Virginia. Reportedly, the vehicle was awarded a Purple Heart for wounds received in battle (two shrapnel holes in the windshield).
26Jeeps were used not only as scout cars but were assault vehicles as well. One of the most daring examples was when a fleet of heavily armed Jeeps from British General Montgomery’s camp were ordered to raid General Rommel’s supply line.
Traveling at night and hiding during the day, they managed to sneak their way around the German main force, ending up well behind German lines. There they waited on a hilltop overlooking Rommel’s main supply