Jeep Turns 75 Today: Get Out Your Sunscreen, Fatigues and Small American Flags

by Steph Willems

Published: July 15th, 2016

jeep turns 75 today get out your sunscreen fatigues and small american flags

Jeep turns 75 years old today, and its birthday promises to be a lot more upbeat than, say, Plymouth’s.

The storied brand, which started life producing a hastily built battlefield runabout, is now a sales juggernaut for Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, which could be its reward for suffering through so many ownership changes over the years. To mark the special occasion, FCA built a one-off Wrangler that takes the brand back to its roots.

You can’t buy it, but you can remove the doors and fold down the windshield on your own Wrangler, head to a nearby field, paint some signs in German and pretend it’s two weeks ’till V-E Day.

Called the Wrangler 75th Salute, the concept was released on the same day the Willys-Overland Motor Company received its military contract for the Model MB back in 1941. The model was soon referred to as a “jeep,” and the company registered the name after the war for use on civilian models.

The concept sheds the Wrangler’s doors and B-pillar and adopts an olive drab paint scheme. A flat front bumper with tow hooks, steel wheels with non-directional rubber, and low-back canvas seats complete the military makeover. You can look, but you can’t own.

The original crop of military vehicles were based on a concept created over the course of two days by the American Bantam Car Company, maker of tiny, cheap passenger vehicles. It was obvious the U.S. would soon find itself overseas, fighting various mustachioed dictators, and the U.S. Army needed a jack-of-all-trades, go-anywhere vehicle. A lot of them. (Meaning: cheap and easy to make, with no creature comforts.)

Contracts went to Willys-Overland and Ford Motor Company, with Willys specifically chosen for its 2.2-liter “Go Devil” four-cylinder engine. That mill, seen by the Army as perfect for the vehicle, made 60 horsepower and 105 pounds-feet of torque. Willys models came with the now-famous seven-slot grill, while Ford’s version had nine slots. In total, 640,000 units were produced during the war.

Since then, Jeep has lived under the roof of nine different corporate parents. (Ten, if you count Renault’s short-lived hand in AMC.) It is the ultimate survivor.

Some of FCA’s brands are struggling, but Jeep’s skyrocketing sales numbers and growing global presence are keeping company executives comfortable and well-fed. Is it any wonder they want to tearfully salute this brand?

[Images: FCA US; Wikipedia]

#Heritage #History #Jeep #JeepWrangler #Military #Willys

Steph Willems

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8 of 38 comments

Testacles Megalos on Jul 15, 2016

Almost 30 years ago I had a rusty CJ3 that was a a great car for banging around the farm, going to town for hardware or groceries. But it was slow and not a car to drive somewhere an hour away. It was small, lithe, and very capable off road. When it burned a valve it came down to selling it to a collector or rebuilding the engine. He offered a good price.... The current jeep is almost a fat parody of the original idea. The new one is probably just as - if not more - capable off-road (I don't know), and probably a lot more comfy. But it's only a cartoon of the original, a common theme in today's faux-nostalgic world.... The "new" Mini is cool, but it will never have the panache of the original item, the "new" Beetle struggles but the original still gets thumbs up.... what is it that the current crop of buyers are attracted to? Is the market for a simple and small CJ3-type vehicle limited to me and half-dozen others? Is the idea of a CJ3 completely antithetical to modern "safety" standards?

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- JustPassinThru on Jul 15, 2016
  
  It's the safety standards. It's simply not possible to make a CJ-style road-legal vehicle anymore. Remember the last Army jeep? The M151, the Mutt. It was never surped to the public - it was not in compliance with Federal safety or emissions standards. A very few wound up in city or village DPWs and a few of those were later sold to the public. And only a few states will title and license them; most insist it's not road-legal. No, it can no longer be. Yes, the Wrangler is NEARLY as capable off-road; but it was the inexpensive simplicity of the CJ/M-series jeeps which made them attractive to abusive off-road use.
  
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- Vulpine on Jul 16, 2016
  
  You can blame Daimler for the size and style of the JK series. That said, it is a remarkably capable monster as far as it goes; able to do things factory-stock that TJ and earlier models required lifts to manage. It also has a lot more 'luxury' appurtenances that you wouldn't equate to a CJ-type of vehicle in showroom form. What some few may not realize is that the basic design on an extended frame and leaf springs serves as a utility truck for Saudi and other military forces. Honestly? That's the one we should be seeing here in the States. But it doesn't meet the heavy safety requirements of Europe or US regulations.
  
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- Skor on Jul 16, 2016
  
  @JustPassinThru When I was a kid, it was common to see ads for 'surplus' jeeps in the backs of magazines. Even then it was illegal to put one on the streets. Those surplus Jeeps were sold as a crate full of parts. Soon after the gov got wise and required all Jeeps to be demilitarized by cutting or crushing.
  
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- JustPassinThru on Jul 17, 2016
  
  @skor There were two different reasons. With the M38 and M38A1 models, when you bought from operators who were selling "surplus jeeps" frequently what he had was a winning bid on wrecked or disassembled units. Or just as you said, boxes of parts. No title would come with those; and how states issued titles on old vehicles varied wildly - still does. Some states do not require a title on a vehicle older than X years. Anything from ten to thirty years old. Other states require titles on all vehicles. Some others have transitioned, but vehicles older than XXXX model year need no title. So...you could wind up with an unassemblable, unregisterable pile of junk. The destroyed models were the M151s. They were ordered NOT to be surplused in one piece, except to foreign buyers. They were to be quartered - they were unibody rigs, so the scrapping team could just strip the engine out, take a torch and draw and quarter it - and then throw the engine back on top of the pile. There's your Mutt, buyer. A few entrepreneurs did piece together those units and then sell them. And in a few states they were registerable. And it's a loss for Jeep fans. I drove one, in the Navy - NAS Alameda had one around as a gofer unit. It was a fer-real riot to drive. But Daddy Goobermint said, NO - so we couldn't have them.
  
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- NoGoYo on Jul 17, 2016
  
  @JustPassinThru I know I've seen a M151 for sale in the classifieds, and one in person, because they're the only Jeeps with horizontal bars instead of vertical ones.
  
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Mtmmo on Jul 15, 2016

That black and white picture beautifully captures America's ruggedness and supremacy.

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- Schmitt trigger on Jul 15, 2016
  
  That, plus the smokestack and building rigs
  
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