Willys Jeep: How the US Army Created the Greatest Military Vehicle of All Time

In 1940, Uncle Sam saw storm clouds on the horizon. Germany was steamrolling European countries at a horrifying pace. Japan was collecting island nations like Boy Scout badges all over the Pacific. Italy and the Soviet Union weren’t exactly on their best behavior, either. The U.S. military’s lax attitude since World War I suddenly looked like it might be a fatal mistake. Hell, even the Army’s garage looked bleak.

Necessity is the mother of all invention, as the saying goes, and the U.S. military had plenty of needs. In addition to replacing the pitiful Grumman F3F with something that could survive more than five seconds with Mitsubishis and Messerschmitts, soldiers needed a quick, nimble combat vehicle that wouldn’t get stuck or fall apart on the battlefield.

A now-defunct company named Willys answered the call. What rolled out of the research and development shop a few weeks later was one of the four vehicles Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower credited with winning World War II, according to the automotive historians at Hagerty. The Willys Jeep is an automotive legend to this day, and this is its origin story.

Born for Combat

There were three contenders for the military’s business when the Army asked for a lightweight reconnaissance vehicle. Willys won the contract over Bantam and Ford, although some design elements from Ford’s prototype made it onto the final production vehicle and the company would get in on the action soon enough. According to the car publication Autoweek, the famous T-latches on the hood and seven-slot grille came from the Ford Pygmy rather than the Willys Quad.

After beating the competition, Willys sent the Army a production model called the MA. It was a step in the right direction, but it failed to meet the Army’s restrictive weight requirement. According to historians at Jeep, the company sent its MAs to the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union under a lend-lease program. Engineers then went back to the drawing board and got serious about shedding weight. They trimmed body panels and even cut fractions of an inch off bolts to save every possible ounce.

The result of all this obsessive refinement was the Willys MB, or Jeep. The vehicle satisfied the Army’s weight limit of 2,160 pounds. Each one cost $738.74, according to Jeep.

Willys’ Detroit factory cranked out MB Jeeps as fast as possible, but that wasn’t enough to meet wartime demand. According to the automotive site Hemmings, Willys produced 362,000 MB Jeeps, and Ford built another 280,000 GPW Jeeps.

Willys MB: A Heavyweight Fighter in a Featherweight’s Body

On paper, the Willys MB didn’t look like much. It was the size of a golf cart with 60 horsepower. It had a three-speed transmission and tires just six inches wide, according to Kaiser Willys, the source for Willys restoration parts and information.

That’s only half the story, though, because it also had a low-range transfer case for crawling over rough terrain. The reliable 2.2-liter “Go-Devil” engine could achieve a top speed of 65 mph and stretch 15 gallons of gas 285 miles -- perfect for scouting battlefields where stopping to fill up wasn’t an option.

Part of the MB’s magic was its simplicity. It was reliable and easy to work on. It was almost impossible to get stuck. If service members managed to get bogged down, they could lift the Jeep out of trouble with body-mounted handles. They could even disassemble and rebuild the entire vehicle in the blink of an eye.

The Willys MB and subsequent evolutions were everything American GIs needed, and nothing more. The lightweight 4x4 didn’t offer any creature comforts and it didn't have a lot of room, but it would get them where they needed to go without fail.

Everyone from frontline soldiers to stateside Navy Shore Patrol sailors loved the Jeep. Senior officers and war correspondents agreed.

According to Jeep, Gen. George C. Marshall called the MB “America’s greatest contribution to modern warfare” (I wouldn’t go that far, but I appreciate the sentiment), and reporter Ernie Pyle said, "It did everything. It went everywhere. Was as faithful as a dog, as strong as a mule and as agile as a goat. It constantly carried twice what it was designed for and still kept going."

That’s what we call a good piece of gear.

Ready to Rumble. Anytime, Anywhere

When you have a vehicle as competent as the Willys MB Jeep, it only makes sense to get it into as many roles as possible. According to the automotive history site Truck Encyclopedia, the Army shipped Jeeps with a huge array of kits for specialized uses.

The base configuration was a stripped-down personnel carrier with room for four, including the driver. The most common adaptation was a reconnaissance kit that added radios, an M1919 .30-caliber machine gun and cans of extra gasoline.

More niche adaptations included an anti-tank kit with a pair of bazookas; a light armor kit for protection against small arms fire; a field ambulance kit with three stretchers; a communication kit with radios, batteries and a generator; a weather-station kit with instruments for measuring wind, barometric pressure and humidity; and a towing package with a hitch and small trailer.

The most unique Jeep of World War II was an amphibious twist on the Ford GPW. According to the Henry Ford Museum, Ford built 12,781 of these aquatic Jeeps between 1942 and 1943.

The military sold off huge numbers of surplus Jeeps after World War II, but it wasn’t ready to move on altogether. In 1950, it replaced the MB with the M38, known internally to Willys as the MC. It was stronger in general, and could even drive underwater (don’t try that at home). This was the Jeep Radar tried to mail home, piece by piece, in the long-running sitcom “M*A*S*H.”

For more than four decades, the Jeep served as a reconnaissance vehicle, a gun truck, a delivery vehicle and an ambulance. It served in World War II, Korea, Vietnam and countless other operations. Willys’ design -- one that came to life in just 75 days, according to Hagerty -- remained the U.S. military’s go-to workhorse until the Humvee replaced it in 1984.

The Jeep Is the Greatest Civilian Variant Ever Imagined

When World War II ended, veterans couldn’t get their hands on surplus Jeeps fast enough. They had spent years watching the incredible little vehicle tackle battlefields around the world, and they knew it was worth every heavily discounted penny. When my grandfather left the Army Air Corps, his next ranch truck wasn’t a Ford or Chevy; it was a Willys Jeep.

He wasn’t the only one. According to Jeep, the brand started building a civilian version called the CJ-2A as soon as the war ended in 1945. The company pitched the CJ to farmers and ranchers by promising that it could pull as much weight as two draft horses (about 80% of American farmers didn’t own a truck or a tractor at the time) for 10 hours a day without overheating.

The love affair didn’t end with the silent generation, either. Willys updated the Jeep with the CJ-3A in 1949 by giving it a redesigned windshield and stronger drivetrain. Throughout the following decades came the CJ-5, CJ-6 and CJ-7. There were trendy appearance packages and new engine options, but the rough-and-tumble spirit of the Willys MB remained.

The civilian market even got some weird and wonderful spinoffs of the basic Jeep, such as the FJ-3 Fleetvan, the FJ-150 flat-nosed cargo truck and the most epic Zamboni ever built.

Yes, I remember the brief period during the ’90s when we thought the H1, a civilian-spec Humvee, would catch on. There’s a surprisingly active community of people who buy and drive old military trucks. But when it comes to military-to-civilian crossovers, there’s no greater success story than the tale of the Jeep.

Is This a Cult or Just Jeep Culture?

In case you haven’t noticed, Americans love Jeeps as much today as they ever have. The Wrangler, the direct descendant of the Willys MB, has changed less than perhaps any other vehicle over the years, and it’s still a fan favorite.

Don’t believe me? According to PR Newswire, Jeep sold 181,409 Wranglers in 2022 and the Wrangler 4xe was America’s best-selling, plug-in hybrid of 2023. Road & Track reported that the hot, new Ford Bronco increased sales by more than 37% from 2022 to 2023, and it still wasn’t enough to surpass the Wrangler.

All told, PR Newswire reports that Jeep has sold more than five million Wranglers since 1987. Keep in mind, that’s just vehicles under the Wrangler name; it doesn’t include the Jeep CJ or military surplus vehicles sold during the 40 years after World War II.

Some of that popularity is due to the Jeep’s incredible off-road capability, even if most of them never leave the pavement. Decades of aftermarket support make it easy to build your dream Jeep, and they’re simple enough that you can handle a lot of the work yourself with basic tools (yep, we can help with that, too).

The rest of the Jeep’s aura comes from its legendary exploits. This is the vehicle that outran a T-Rex in “Jurassic Park” and helped Daisy Duke outrun Hazzard County’s finest. It conquered the Rubicon Trail and partied on more beaches than the Beach Boys sang about in “Surfin’ USA.”

And before all of that, it helped win World War II. Not bad for a little 4x4 with canvas seats and no doors.

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