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Military Jeeps
Legend and Lore
1 Until the first Jeep was created, there had never been another vehicle like it. Sure, the army had earlier used four-wheel-drive trucks; the first of them was during the Mexican Punitive Expedition of 1916–1917 when it brought a fleet of Jeffery four-wheel-drive trucks to Mexico to chase Pancho Villa. The trucks proved to be sturdy and capable but were heavy, and their small engines limited the top speed to about 18 mph! The big trucks found their place in the battlefields of World War I France, where they hauled ammunition and guns to the front lines. However, the army knew it needed something smaller, lighter, and more agile for the coming war.
Here, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt reviews troops from a Jeep MB.
2 In the years prior to World War II, the army also tried two-wheel-drive Ford Model Ts, but they proved to be unacceptable. When the cars were stripped down, with fenders, tools, and spare tire removed, their performance was decent, but with a heavy machine gun and other equipment along with passengers and ammunition, the Ford cars got stuck in sand and mud. The army also tried motorcycles, but not surprisingly they got stuck worse than the cars.
3 Two soldiers even built a platform vehicle called the Belly Flopper, which had a machine gun mounted up front and room for two men to lie on their stomachs as they drove forward during the attack. The thing was uncomfortable to use and couldn’t be driven on the road for any length of time (they had to be trucked to the battlefield), so although they were a decent assault vehicle, they didn’t make the cut. The army was looking for a scout car that could be used for many tasks, not just as an assault vehicle.
This three-man crew appears to be on reconnaissance with a hefty machine gun in case of trouble.
4 Most people know that Jeep Corporation didn’t invent the Jeep; neither did its forerunners Willys-Overland and Kaiser Jeep. The first such vehicle was produced by a now-defunct company known as the American Bantam Car Company. In 1940, bidding against Ford Motor Company and Willys-Overland, the Butler, Pennsylvania–based Bantam won an army contract to design and build a prototype of a new military scout car. On the verge of bankruptcy, the company then instituted a crash program to try to win the production contract.
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
