This year marks the 75th anniversary of the iconic military off-roader that would become known as the Willys Jeep.
A number of famous vehicles and car marques are celebrating landmark years in 2016, but it’s on April 7th 1942 that the US patent office awarded a patent for the original Jeep.
Commissioned by the US military on the brink of the Second World War, the Jeep was a collaboration between the American Bantam Car Company and Willys-Overland.
It was Bantam which designed the original simple, rough-and-tumble vehicle, but as Bantam couldn’t produce an engine with enough torque, the final product came specified with a Willys-built engine.
However, Bantam turned out to be too small to produce enough of the vehicles for the US Army, and as a result production was turned over to Ford, with the Willys motor still intact.
75 years of an icon
Designated the GPW, more than 638,000 of them would be produced to aid the United States’ war effort, and true to its design as a hardy and easily-repaired utility vehicle, many still survive.
The origin of the name ‘Jeep’ is still a subject of contention too, with some claiming that the moniker came from a shortened nickname for its GPW model designation.
Others claim that the military was so impressed with the truck’s capabilities that they named it after Eugene the Jeep from the Popeye comics, a magical animal with the ability to climb walls and ceilings.
These days, the original model is survived by the various vehicles in Jeep’s range, including its direct successor, the robust mud-plugging Jeep Wrangler.
To celebrate the original model’s 75th anniversary, every car in Jeep’s range is getting its own special anniversary edition, including the Wrangler with the option of the original’s iconic green paintwork.