Jeep

St. James Encyclopedia of Pop Culture, Jan 29, 2002 by Peter C. Holloran

The Jeep is a multipurpose light motor vehicle developed by the U.S. Army Quartermaster Corps for Allied military forces in World War II. Designed by Colonel Arthur William Sidney Herrington (1891-1970) at the Marmon Motor Corporation in Indianapolis, one million jeeps were manufactured by the Willys-Overland Motors Company in Toledo and under license by American Bantam Car Company and the Ford Motor Company from 1941 to 1945.

The small, sturdy, versatile Jeep had the ruggedness of a truck and the maneuverability of an automobile. It carried four passengers or one-quarter ton of cargo over difficult terrain at speeds up to 65 mph. The origin of its name is unclear. It may derive from its military nomenclature, general purpose vehicle (g.p.), or come from Eugene the Jeep, a 1936 Popeye comic strip character drawn by E. C. Edgar. In any case, American newspapers were using the name Jeep by 1941. The fast, lightweight, all-terrain reconnaissance vehicle was used in World War II by all U.S. military forces as well as the British, French, Russian, Australian, and New Zealand armed forces. The war correspondent Ernie Pyle recalled the Army jeep was "as faithful as a dog, as strong as a mule and as agile as a goat." The United States military continued to use M38A1 jeeps for various purposes at the end of the twentieth century.

Army surplus jeeps were used in a variety of agricultural, construction, and commercial purposes by American veterans familiar with the jeep's practicality. By 1945 Willys-Overland designed the CJ-2A jeep, the first model intended for civilian use, an all-steel sedan or station wagon used as a two-wheel drive seven passenger or delivery vehicle. By 1949 a four-wheel drive, six-cylinder jeep was produced for the growing number of drivers who used it for fishing, hunting, skiing, and other recreational off-road activities.

In 1953 the Kaiser-Frazer Company acquired the Willys-Overland Company and produced the larger, wider CJ-5 Willys Jeep Station Wagon, a functional four-wheel drive utility vehicle. This civilian jeep, based on the Army M38A1 jeep used in the Korean war, became a milestone in postwar American automotive history, was manufactured for 30 years in 30 countries, and sold in 150 nations. By 1963 the new Jeep Wagoneer marked the end of the classic Willys Wagon which ceased production in 1965. The Wagoneer was the first sport utility vehicle (SUV), and by 1970 it tripled annual jeep production and was imitated by Ford, Chevrolet, and Chrysler.

In 1970 the American Motors Corporation took over the Kaiser-Jeep Corporation, thus gaining the Wagoneer's expanding baby boomer market. Throughout the 1970s more comfortable models derived from the jeep were seen on highways around the world as Plymouth, Toyota, and Isuzu introduced similar off-road vehicles (ORV). In the 1980s, when fuel conservation was no longer the concern it had been in the 1970s, larger, heavier, more expensive SUV models became popular with suburban motorists. Although not replacing the jeep, the most popular SUV models, with names evocative of the outdoors and the Western frontier (such as the Navigator, Explorer, Renegade, Blazer, Mountaineer, Trooper, Rodeo, Wrangler, Comanche, Cherokee, and Pathfinder), combined the rough and tough jeep reputation with the appealing features of the station or ranch wagon and the pick-up truck.

When Chrysler absorbed AMC in 1987, it was largely to gain the jeep's increasing share of the market. A right-hand drive Jeep Cherokee model was produced for the U.S. Post Office and in Britain, Australia, and Japan, and the Grand Cherokee replaced the Wagoneer in 1993. Chrysler, having merged in 1998 with the Daimler Benz Company, continued to produce a variety of Daimler Chrysler jeep models for civilian, military, and government drivers.

Since World War II, when soldiers drove the American jeep around the world, it has proven to be a ubiquitous war-horse, workhorse and the most popular vehicle ever manufactured. One indication of the jeep's popularity with the G.I.s was Glenn Miller's Army Air Force Band recording of "Jeep Jockey Jump" in 1943 and Fats Waller's song "Little Bo Peep Has Lost Her Jeep." The 1944 movie Four Jills in a Jeep recreated a USO troupe entertaining soldiers during the war. Television featured the jeep in two popular programs: The Roy Rogers Show (NBC, 1951-57) had a jeep named Nelliebelle, and The Rat Patrol (ABC, 1966-68) showed a U.S. Army jeep squad harassing Rommel's Afrika Korps during the war.

Perhaps the most unusual legacy of the jeep may be the Manila jeepney. These brightly colored, elaborately decorated jeep taxis carry one-third of the city's commuter and tourist traffic daily. Many other tourist and resort centers used jeeps for off-road recreation at the end of the twentieth century, as did millions of dedicated jeep motorists around the world.