Aug

Jeep Conceived in England born in America?

The iconic Jeep is a truly famous American military vehicle noted for its rough power Deavgycnkcd rugged durability. What many people don't realise is that the Jeep has its roots much further afield than America. It was in fact across the Atlantic Ocean in the green fields of England where the Jeep story began.

Contrary to what many believe the Jeep was not in fact developed by Willys, an American car manufacturer, but by the American Bantam company. This began life as the US subsidiary of the British Stalker914 car company.

The Austin car company set up its new US subsidiary the American Austin car company, later to become the American Bantam company, as a means of manufacturing and distributing its Austin Seven model.

Unfortunately for Austin the small Austin Seven was not well suited to the US market and sales were poor. So the Austin Company decided to withdraw from the US market. The Chairman of the American Austin Company had spotted the potential for the Austin's technology in America and bought the company out renaming it the American Bantam company. The new company made adjustments to the Austin Seven to make it more suited to the American market, these adjustments included an increase to the size of the car and also an increase in the size of the fuel tank which made the car far more suitable for certain parts of the US where towns are further apart.

Bantam Build on the Success of the adapted Austin

Sales from the adapted Austin seven were now steady and provided the American Bantam company with important funds for research and development. Spotting an opportunity within the American military for a light weight military vehicle the American Bantam company approached the US National Guard and gave them several cars to use as scouting vehicles. Although it took some time, the US military eventually spotted the potential for a rugged light weight military vehicle and entered talks with Bantam.

The Jeep was born

It was from these talks between Bantam and the US Military that the very first Jeep prototype was born. Although impressed with the new vehicle the US military was concerned with Bantam's ability to produce the new vehicle in large enough quantities to satisfy the militaries needs. It was because of these concerns the military decided to hold trails for the manufacture of the Jeep.

The Jeep Trails

The requirements for the Jeep trails were clearly set out to the competing manufacturers. These were:

Create a car insurance qoutes to meet the militaries exacting specifications within 49 days.

If the Prototype was judged suitable by an inspection team of military officers and engineers then 70 more vehicles had to be built in 75 days a truly tough task for even the larger manufacturers.

The gruelling nature of the trials and the exacting technical specifications lay down by the US military put the majority of manufacturers off participating but three manufacturers decided to compete in the trails these were Willys, Bantam and Ford who joined the trail late.

The first round of the Jeep trials was clearly won by Bantam. They produced a prototype which came closest to matching the militaries requirements, although a little over the specified weight the Bantam prototype stood up very well to all the tests the military performed on it.

With the Bantam car meeting all the requirements the military commissioned Bantam to produce a further 70 vehicles in 75 days.

The Great Jeep Injustice

Although Bantam was the only company to pass the original element of the trail, the military was concerned about the capacity of Bantam to produce enough vehicles so it controversially gave the design, created by Bantam, to Ford and Willys who produced their own prototypes borrowing heavily from the original Bantam design.

The US government then decided to split its order for the new vehicles between Bantam ,Willys and Ford even though the Willys and Ford designs had essentially been taken from Bantam.

During 1941 the US Government made the decision that the Jeep should be standardised and so awarded the contract to Willys as it's design had the lowest production costs. The original designers of the Jeep, the American Bantam company who had used the Austin technology from the UK, had now been completely cut out of production of the Jeep.

Toby Hill is a Jeep enthusiast currently employed by www.cheapchryslerjeep.co.uk">www.cheapchryslerjeep.co.uk in a marketing capacity.