| Jeep
The term jeep was originally military slang, although the exact origin of the term is topic for debate. The first jeep prototype was the Bantam BRC, built by American Bantam for the US Army in Butler, Pennsylvania. The American Bantam Car Company actually designed and built the vehicle that first met the Army's criteria, excepting that the engine did not meet the Army's torque requirements. The Army also believed that American Bantam Car Company was too small to supply the quantities required. So the Army asked Willys and Ford to make second attempts on their original designs after seeing Bantam's vehicle in action. Willys-Overland offered the lowest bid for an initial order of 16,000 "jeeps", won the initial contract and designated it the MB military vehicle. Willys-Overland Inc. was awarded the privilege of registering the name "Jeep" as an official US trademark, merely because it originally offered the most powerful engine. But the Army was also concerned that Willys-Overland was a small company with only one plant, so they required that Ford should also build them and Ford designated theirs the GPW. The jeep proved highly successful because of its low cost, light weight and off-roading capabilities and was highly adaptable to an extremely wide variety of applications for wartime. The jeep was widely copied around the world sometimes under license from Willys (e.g. Nekaf in the Netherlands and Hotchkiss in France). Jeeps were also supplied to the Soviet Red Army during World War II. The jeep has been supplanted by a number of vehicles in the United States military (e.g. Ford's M151 MUTT & the HMMWV or "Humvee"). The Jeep marque has gone through many owners. Starting in 1941 with Willys, which produced the first Civilian Jeep (CJ). Willys was sold to Kaiser in 1953, and it became Kaiser-Jeep in 1963. American Motors Corporation (AMC) purchased Kaiser’s failing Jeep operations in 1970. AMC's Jeep shared components with its current line, achieved volume efficiencies, and capitalized on Jeep’s international and government markets. Renault began investing in AMC 1979, but by 1987 the automobile markets had changed so that Renault was experiencing financial hardship. Chrysler Corporation decided to capture the Jeep brand, along with the AMC assets in 1987. Shortly after the Jeep CJ was replaced with the AMC designed Jeep Wrangler. In 1998 Chrysler merged with Daimler-Benz to form DaimlerChrysler AG. DaimlerChrysler eventually sold Chrysler to a private NY equity company in 2007. Jeep is a division of the resulting Chrysler Holdings.
http://www.jeep.com
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