FreightWaves Classics: The jeep is born!

The state of the U.S. Army (1918-39) 

Although World War I began in August 1914, the United States did not enter the war until April 6, 1917, after numerous U.S. merchant ships were sunk and casualties mounted from civilian ships being torpedoed or shelled by German U-boats. U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps troops took part in the last offensives that ended the war. By 1918 there were nearly 2.4 million men in the U.S. Army, and nearly 53,000 in the Marines. However, after the armistice was signed in November 1918, the U.S. armed forces were once again decreased in size. By 1919, the Army was reduced to just over 851,000 men, and by 1923, it was reduced further to just over 133,000 men. 

World War II officially began on September 1, 1939, when Nazi Germany invaded Poland. However, an undeclared war had been underway since 1931, when Japan invaded Manchuria and then China. 

While the United States remained officially neutral until the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the leaders of the U.S. armed forces realized the need to increase the size of the service branches, as well as to modernize its weaponry and transportation systems.

Estimates of the Army’s manpower in 1939 range between 174,000 and 200,000 soldiers. The U.S. Army was ranked only the 19th largest in the world – and it was smaller than Portugal’s army! President Roosevelt appointed General George C. Marshall as Army chief of staff in September 1939 with the mandate to expand and modernize the Army in preparation for war.

The need for a new vehicle

Following President Roosevelt’s mandate, the Army sought a vehicle to replace horses and the motorcycle as a mechanized form of transportation that could be mass-produced quickly and would also be fast, lightweight, and able to travel on most kinds of terrain. 

The idea of a small, durable automobile was championed by retired Navy Commander Charles ‘Harry’ Payne, an American Bantam Car Company (Bantam) salesman. He worked with Robert Brown, a civilian consultant working for the U.S. Army Quartermaster Corps (QMC).

The Army sent an RFP  to 135 companies to provide proposals for a new 1/4-ton four wheel drive vehicle. Of the 135 companies, only two – Bantam and Willys-Overland – responded. 

The competition was Bantam’s opportunity for growth; the company was in financial difficulty. Bantam’s chief engineer Harold Crist and Frank Fenn, the company’s president, worked together during the spring of 1940 to develop the specifications for what they termed the Bantam Reconnaissance Car. Crist did the bulk of specifying, conceiving, designing and construction of the car. Bantam also recruited Karl Probst, a freelance engineer, to draft and formalize Crist’s pre-existing layout and the Army’s requirements. 

Using the work of Crist, Fenn and Probst, Bantam submitted its prototype design, bid and blueprints for a new vehicle to the U.S. Army on July 22, 1940. The Army approved Bantam’s design, and the company delivered the first Bantam Reconnaissance Car (better known then and now as the jeep) to the QMC on September 23, 1940 at Camp Holabird, a U.S. Army base east of Baltimore, Maryland. Engineers from Ford Motor Company and Willys-Overland were present at Camp Holabird during testing to learn more about Bantam’s new vehicle. 

The Army’s tests and the decision

Bantam had produced the most fuel-efficient engine and first prototype under the original U.S. Army tender specifications. The Army subjected Bantam’s prototypes to a rigorous set of trials, and its evaluation reported that “this vehicle demonstrated ample power and all requirements of the service.” Bantam was awarded the first contract to produce the vehicles for the Army.

After the delivery of the first test jeep, Bantam began serial production of the Mark II (also called the BRC-60) jeeps with improvements recommended by the QMC. The company manufactured and delivered another 60 quarter-ton, four-wheel-drive trucks for testing on November 29, 1940. These prototypes are considered to be the first jeeps. Bantam was the sole manufacturer of jeeps put into service by the U.S. Army during 1940.

In total, Bantam built 2,675 jeeps from 1940 through 1943. The bulk of those vehicles were delivered during 1941. More than half of the initial production run was sent by the United States to the Great Britain, and some also went to the Soviet Union. 

However, Ford had relationships within the Quartermaster Corps. It was pointed out that Bantam lacked the production capacity to produce the vehicle on the scale needed by the Army; this led to the reopening of the bidding and contracts. 

Due to Bantam’s financial and labor challenges, limited facilities and the production requirement of 75 units per day (before the nation entered World War II, when the quantity was increased), the Army gave the original Bantam Reconnaissance Car designs to Willys-Overland and awarded the mass-production contract to Willys and Ford. What became known to millions as the jeep was originally a product of the American Bantam Car Company. 

When the United States entered World War II on the side of the Allies in late 1941, production of jeeps was in high gear. After entering the war, the Army increased its order for the vehicles; about 650,000 jeeps were manufactured during the war. Jeeps were very important to the war effort. For many they became a symbol of American ingenuity. Unfortunately, Bantam received little credit for its development of the vehicle.

American Bantam launched an advertising campaign in 1943 that boasted that “Ivan got his first Jeep from Bantam.” This was in response to an application by Willys-Overland to the United States Patent and Trademark Office to trademark “JEEP” that was filed on February 13th, 1943.

Bantam’s history

The American Bantam Car Company was originally founded in 1929 as American Austin Car Company in Butler, Pennsylvania. The company introduced a line of small British-designed Austins in 1930. However, the company only sold 8,558 Austins in 1930 – far short of the 60,000 the company expected would be sold by the company’s 4,000 dealers. Poor sales led the American Austin Car Company to declare bankruptcy early in 1936.

On June 2, 1936, Roy Evans and his co-founders incorporated American Bantam Car Company in Butler County, Pennsylvania,and transferred the assets purchased from the American Austin Car Company, along with $500 in cash, to the new company.

In early 1937, Evans contacted Count Alexis de Sakhnoffsky, who had designed the original Austin body. Evans asked de Sakhnoffsky to design a new line of bodies for Bantam. However, the new designs would have to be improvised around the existing tooling because of the company’s lack of funds.

The designer accepted the challenge; he visited the Bantam factory and designed a completely new front grille, new front fenders and new rear fenders. In addition, the Austin engine was redesigned with a new aluminum induction system and cylinder head. The engine retained the 45.6-cubic inch displacement, but a fully pressurized oil system was adopted, which increased the compression ratio by 40% to a 7:1 ratio and the new design produced 20 horsepower at 4,000 rpm, a 50% improvement over the Austin engine. Despite the new designs, the improvements to the engine, and a wide range of Bantam body styles (which ranged from light trucks to woodie station wagons), only about 6,000 Bantams of all types were built. 

American Bantam continued to build cars until August 18, 1943. Going forward, all of its manufacturing efforts were focused on World War II weapons production, including the “manufacture of torpedo engines, aircraft controls and parts, torpedo tail gearing, amphibious trailers and cargo trailers.”

Legacy

The American Bantam Car Company and the concept of small cars were ahead of their time in the United States. It wasn’t until the 1950s that enough small cars were sold in the country to gain an acceptable market share. Even then, it wasn’t until the oil embargoes of the 1970s that small cars sold in large quantities.

Following the end of World War II, Bantam continued to manufacture trailers for the consumer market until the company was taken over by American Rolling Mills in 1956.

Bantam is credited with the invention of the original jeep and the first serial production military jeeps ordered by the U.S. Army in 1940. Unfortunately, few are aware of Bantam’s role in the development of the jeep (and ultimately the development of the auto industry’s sport-utility vehicle segment).

Since World War II, the jeep has remained in use for military and civilian purposes alike.

FreightWaves Classics thanks the Smithsonian Institution, usautoindustryworldwartwo.com (and in particular, David D. Jackson), Wikipedia, alternatewars.com and Car and Driver for information and photos that were used in this article.

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