Everything began with the winds of war in Europe and the Pacific, when the Technical Committee of the U.S. Army General Staff, aware of the serious under-motorisation of the armed forces, drew up a set of requirements for the development of a new light four-wheel-drive vehicle in the ¼-ton class. It was to equip the Army under the concept of a small, reliable automobile to replace the horse, still omnipresent in military activities.
Alongside the military, the committee that defined the specifications for the new vehicle included the president, Frank Fenn, and the chief engineer, Harold Crist, of the American Bantam company — a small manufacturer that would design, build, and deliver the first examples of the Bantam BRC40 (Bantam Reconnaissance Car, model 1940) in September 1940 to the U.S. Army Quartermaster Corps for a 30-day testing period prior to approval.
The specifications for the new vehicle were quite demanding, beginning with a maximum weight of 625 kg. To ease transport, the maximum body length was limited to 2.032 metres, and the windscreen had to be foldable. The engine had to deliver a torque of 115 Nm, and the payload capacity was set at 270 kg — the equivalent of three soldiers and their combat equipment. Engineers from Ford and Willys-Overland attended the Bantam BRC40 trials to learn more about the new vehicle. As there were doubts that Bantam could produce a minimum of 75 units per day, the original drawings were handed over to Willys-Overland and Ford, becoming the basis for the “Jeep” project we know from the World War II — essentially an evolution of the Bantam BRC40, which was nonetheless built in 2,642 units, almost all supplied to the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union.
The new “Jeep” all-terrain MB developed by Willys (MB for Military Type B) and the similar Ford GPW (General Purpose Willys) were among the first military vehicles mass-produced in the United States, marking a milestone in engineering, standardisation, and strategic mobility for personnel and cargo transport during wartime. Exceptionally effective off-road, the two models shared numerous standardised features, such as the 60-horsepower engine at 4,000 rpm, 6.00×16 tyres, the petrol “jerrycan” holder on the left rear side, and blackout lights.
With no true equivalent among the adversaries, the closest vehicle available to the Germans was the Volkswagen Kübelwagen, featuring an air-cooled rear-drive engine — a model described in a 1943 issue of Reader’s Digest as “a muscled reptile crawling over the rocks”.
More than 640,000 “Jeeps” were built — 351,339 by Willys and about 280,000 by Ford — representing roughly one-quarter of all U.S. military vehicles produced during the war. They were used in every theatre of operations, from Europe to Africa, Asia, and the Pacific, and were supplied in large numbers to the Allies. During this period, they carried everyone from the humblest infantryman to such prominent figures as Supreme Allied Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, General George Patton, and General George Marshall, Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army, who described the “Jeep” as “America’s greatest contribution to modern warfare”.
After the conflict, thousands of surplus Willys MB and Ford GPW vehicles were transferred to Allied nations or sold off cheaply at auctions across the United States. Many war veterans were able to buy these 4x4s for just a few dollars, using their familiar “Jeeps” as farm vehicles or practical open-tops for both town and country use. Those not purchased by ex-servicemen found their way into the hands of civilians fascinated by owning a genuine piece of history.
As civilian demand for 4x4s soon far exceeded the supply of surplus wartime “Jeeps”, Willys immediately began producing a civilian version of the MB, still in 1945. Thus was born the “Civilian Jeep 2A”, abbreviated “CJ-2A”, which paved the way for an entire CJ family under Kaiser/AMC/Willys, later evolving in 1986 into the Jeep Wrangler — whose current JL version is the umpteenth evolution of the ingenious World War II MB.