Jeep Vehicles - Where the idea was born

Jeep: Invented in England, Born in America?

The Jeep is an icon, and a truly famous American military vehicle known for it's raw power and rugged durability. What many people don't know is that the Jeep's roots are not in America. The story of the Jeep actually originates across the ocean in England.

Despite what many people believe, the Jeep was not developed by Willys, an American car manufacturer, but by the American Bantam company. This started out as the US subsidiary of the British Austin auto company.

The Austin car company set up its new US branch, the American Austin car company, which later became the American Bantam company, in order to manufacture and distribute its Austin Seven model.

Sadly for Austin, the diminutive Austin Seven was not suited to the US market and sales were slow. Therefore the Austin Company made the decision to withdraw from the United States market. The Chairman of the American Austin Company recognized the potential for the Austin's technology in America, moved the company to the US, and renamed it the American Bantam company. The fledgling company adjusted the Austin Seven to make it more suited to the American market. The adjustments included increasing the size of the car as well as increasing the size of the fuel tank, which made the car far more acceptable for certain areas of the US where there was a greater distance between towns.

Bantam Built on the Success of the Adapted Austin.
Sales from the modified Austin Seven were steadily increasing, and gave the American Bantam company important funds for research and development. Recognizing an opportunity within the American military for a light weight military vehicle, the American Bantam company solicited the US National Guard, and gave them several cars to be used as scouting vehicles. It took some time, but the US military finally realized the potential for a light-weight, rugged vehicle and began talks with Bantam.

The Jeep Was Born.
These talks between Bantam and the US military produced the first Jeep prototype. Though impressed with the new vehicle, the US military had some concerns as to whether Bantam had the ability to produce enough new vehicles to meet the needs of the military. Due to these concerns, the military made a decision to hold trials for the manufacture of the Jeep.

The Jeep Trials.
Jeep tial requirements were clearly stated to competing car makers.

These were:

* Within 49 days, design a prototype to meet the military's exact specifications.

* If the prototype was judged to be acceptable by an inspection team of military officers and engineers, then 70 more vehicles had to be manufactured in 75 days. This was a truly difficult task for even the larger manufacturers.

While most of the manufacturers skipped the exhausting trials due to the rigid technical specifications spelled out by the U.S. military, three manufacturers ended up competing in the trials -- Willys, Bantam and Ford which joined the competition belatedly.

The first round of tests was overwhelmingly won by Bantam. They created a prototype that came closest to matching the military's specifications. Although it weighed a a little more than the stated specifications, the Bantam prototype withstood the tests performed on it by the military.

Since the Bantam car met all the requirements, the military commissioned Bantam to produce another 70 vehicles in 75 days.

The Great Jeep Injustice.
Even though Bantam was the only company to pass the original trial, the military was worried that Bantam did not have the capacity to make enough vehicles, so in a controversial move, it gave the design that Bantam created to Ford and Willys. They produced their own prototypes, using many ideas from Bantam's original design.

The US government then split its order for the new vehicles between Bantam, Willys and Ford even though the designs by Willys and Ford had, for all intents and purposes, been taken from Bantam.

During 1941, the US Government decided to standardize the Jeep, and awarded Willys the contract because they had the lowest production costs. The Jeep's original designers, the American Bantam company, who had used the Austin technology from the UK, had been completely eliminated as manufacturers of the Jeep.

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