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Jeep
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Jeep
Vehicle Marque
A brand of sport-utility vehicles produced by
Willys-Overland, American Motors Corporation and most recently by
Chrysler after
Chrysler's acquisition of American Motors. First used as a marque in 1941 and based in Toledo, Ohio, United States.
Vehicle names used by Jeep throughout its history include:
Cherokee,
CJ,
CJ-5,
CJ-6,
CJ-7,
CJ-8,
Comanche,
Compass,
FC-150,
Gladiator,
Grand Cherokee,
Liberty,
Lower Forty,
Patriot,
Renegade, Roanoke,
Wagoneer, and
Wrangler.
Advertising slogans include:
There's Only One (early 2000's)
Only in a Jeep (early 2000's)
Dealerships include:
Albany Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram (Albany, Oregon)
Ancira Chrysler Jeep Dodge Ram (San Antonio, Texas)
Bay Ridge Chrysler Jeep Dodge Ram (Brooklyn, New York)
Benny Boyd Chrysler Dodge Jeep (Lampasas, Texas)
Brown's Automotive Group (Patchogue, New York)
Central Avenue Chrysler Jeep Dodge Ram (Yonkers, New York)
Crown Motors (Holland, Michigan)
Easter Jeep Safari - Moab, Utah
Garavel Chrysler Jeep Dodge Ram (Norwalk, Connecticut)
Ingram Park Chrysler Jeep Dodge (San Antonio, Texas)
Jim Marsh Chrysler Jeep (Las Vegas, Nevada)
McConnell Chevrolet Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram (Santa Rosa, California)
Mission Chrysler Jeep Dodge (San Antonio, Texas)
Nereson Chevrolet Oldsmobile Cadillac Jeep (Detroit Lakes, Minnesota)
River Front Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram (North Aurora, Illinois)
S&L Motors (Pulaski, Wisconsin)
Shimkat Motor Company (Fort Dodge, Iowa)
U.S. Drive Right (Michigan Center, Michigan)
History
The following section is an excerpt from Wikipedia's Jeep page on 16 June 2016, text available via the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Jeep is a brand of American automobiles that is a division of FCA US LLC (formerly Chrysler Group, LLC), a wholly owned subsidiary of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles. The former Chrysler Corporation acquired the Jeep brand, along with the remaining assets of its owner American Motors, in 1987. The division is headquartered in Toledo, Ohio. Jeep's current product range consists solely of sport utility vehicles and off-road vehicles, but has also included pickup trucks in the past.
The original Jeep was the prototype Bantam BRC. Willys MB Jeeps went into production in 1941 specifically for the military, arguably making them the oldest four-wheel drive mass-production vehicles now known as SUVs. The Jeep became the primary light 4-wheel-drive vehicle of the United States Army and the Allies during World War II, as well as the postwar period. The term became common worldwide in the wake of the war. Doug Stewart notes:
The spartan, cramped, and unstintingly functional jeep became the ubiquitous World War II four-wheeled personification of Yankee ingenuity and cocky, can-do determination.
The first civilian models were produced in 1945. It inspired a number of other light utility vehicles, such as the Land Rover. Many Jeep variants serving similar military and civilian roles have since been designed in other nations.
Origin of the name
Many explanations of the origin of the word jeep have proven difficult to verify. The most widely held theory is that the military designation GP (for Government Purposes or General Purpose) was slurred into the word Jeep in the same way that the contemporary HMMWV (for High-Mobility Multi-purpose Wheeled Vehicle) has become known as the Humvee. Joe Frazer, Willys-Overland President from 1939 to 1944, claimed to have coined the word jeep by slurring the initials G.P. There are no contemporaneous uses of "GP" before later attempts to create a "backronym."
A more detailed view, popularized by R. Lee Ermey on his television series Mail Call, disputes this "slurred GP" origin, saying that the vehicle was designed for specific duties, and was never referred to as "General Purpose" and it is highly unlikely that the average jeep-driving GI would have been familiar with this designation. The Ford GPW abbreviation actually meant G for government use, P to designate its 80-inch (2,000 mm) wheelbase and W to indicate its Willys-Overland designed engine. Ermey suggests that soldiers at the time were so impressed with the new vehicles that they informally named it after Eugene the Jeep, a character in the Popeye comic strip and cartoons created by E. C. Segar, as early as mid-March 1936. Eugene the Jeep was Popeye's "jungle pet" and was "small, able to move between dimensions and could solve seemingly impossible problems."
The word jeep, however, was used as early as 1914 by US Army mechanics assigned to test new vehicles. In 1937, tractors which were supplied by Minneapolis Moline to the US Army were called jeeps. A precursor of the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress was also referred to as the jeep.
Words of the Fighting Forces by Clinton A. Sanders, a dictionary of military slang, published in 1942, in the library at The Pentagon gives this definition:
Jeep: A four-wheel drive vehicle of one-half- to one-and-one-half-ton capacity for reconnaissance or other army duty. A term applied to the bantam-cars, and occasionally to other motor vehicles (U.S.A.) in the Air Corps, the Link Trainer; in the armored forces, the ½-ton command vehicle. Also referred to as "any small plane, helicopter, or gadget."
This definition is supported by the use of the term "jeep carrier" to refer to the Navy's small escort carriers.
Early in 1941, Willys-Overland demonstrated the vehicle's off-road capability by having it drive up the steps of the United States Capitol, driven by Willys test driver Irving "Red" Haussman, who had recently heard soldiers at Fort Holabird calling it a "jeep." When asked by syndicated columnist Katharine Hillyer for the Washington Daily News (or by a bystander, according to another account) what it was called, Irving answered, "It's a jeep."
Katharine Hillyer's article was published nationally on February 19, 1941, and included a picture of the vehicle with the caption:
LAWMAKERS TAKE A RIDE- With Senator Meade, of New York, at the wheel, and Representative Thomas, of New Jersey, sitting beside him, one of the Army's new scout cars, known as "jeeps" or "quads", climbs up the Capitol steps in a demonstration yesterday. Soldiers in the rear seat for gunners were unperturbed.
Although the term was also military slang for vehicles that were untried or untested, this exposure caused all other jeep references to fade, leaving the 4x4 with the name.
The original trademark brand-name application was filed in February 1943 by Willys-Overland. It is also used as a generic term as the lowercase "jeep" for vehicles inspired by the Jeep that are suitable for use on rough terrain.
The Jeep brand
The brand has gone through many owners, starting with Willys, which produced the first Civilian Jeep (CJ) in 1945. As the only company that continually produced Jeep vehicles after the war, in June 1950 Willys-Overland was granted the privilege of owning the name "Jeep" as a registered trademark. Willys was sold to Kaiser Motors in 1953, which became Kaiser-Jeep in 1963. American Motors Corporation (AMC) purchased Kaiser's money-losing Jeep operations in 1970. The utility vehicles complemented AMC's passenger car business by sharing components, achieving volume efficiencies, as well as capitalizing on Jeep's international and government markets.
The French automaker Renault began investing in AMC in 1979. However, by 1987, the automobile markets had changed and even Renault itself was experiencing financial troubles. At the same time, Chrysler Corporation wanted to capture the Jeep brand, as well as other assets of AMC. Chrysler bought out AMC in 1987, shortly after the Jeep CJ-7 was replaced with the AMC-designed Jeep Wrangler or YJ. Chrysler merged with Daimler-Benz in 1998 to form DaimlerChrysler. DaimlerChrysler eventually sold most of their interest in Chrysler to a private equity company in 2007. Chrysler and the Jeep division operated under Chrysler Group LLC, until December 15, 2014, when the name was changed to FCA US LLC.
Jeeps have been built under licence by various manufacturers around the world, including Mahindra in India, EBRO in Spain, and several in South America. Mitsubishi built more than 30 different Jeep models in Japan between 1953 and 1998. Most of them were based on the CJ-3B model of the original Willys-Kaiser design.
Toledo, Ohio has been the headquarters of the Jeep brand since its inception, and the city has always been proud of this heritage. Although no longer produced in the same Toledo Complex as the World War II originals, two streets in the vicinity of the old plant are named Willys Parkway and Jeep Parkway. The Jeep Wrangler and Jeep Cherokee are built in the city currently, in separate facilities, not far from the site of the original Willys-Overland plant.
American Motors set up the first automobile-manufacturing joint venture in the People's Republic of China on January 15, 1984. The result was Beijing Jeep Corporation, Ltd., in partnership with Beijing Automobile Industry Corporation, to produce the Jeep Cherokee (XJ) in Beijing. Manufacture continued after Chrysler's buyout of AMC. This joint venture is now part of DaimlerChrysler and DaimlerChrysler China Invest Corporation. The original 1984 XJ model was updated and called the "Jeep 2500" toward the end of its production that ended after 2005.
A division of FCA US LLC, the most recent successor company to the Jeep brand, now holds trademark status on the name "Jeep" and the distinctive 7-slot front grille design. The original 9-slot grille associated with all World War II jeeps was designed by Ford for their GPW, and because it weighed less than the original "Slat Grille" of Willys (an arrangement of flat bars), was incorporated into the "standardized jeep" design.
The history of the HMMWV (Humvee) has ties with Jeep. In 1971, Jeep's Defense and Government Products Division was turned into AM General, a wholly owned subsidiary of American Motors Corporation, which also owned Jeep. In 1979, while still owned by American Motors, AM General began the first steps toward designing the Humvee. AM General also continued manufacturing the two-wheel-drive DJ, which Jeep created in 1953. The General Motors Hummer and Chrysler Jeep have been waging battle in U.S. courts over the right to use seven slots in their respective radiator grilles. Chrysler Jeep claims it has the exclusive rights to use the seven vertical slits since it is the sole remaining assignee of the various companies since Willys gave their postwar jeeps seven slots instead of Ford's nine-slot design for the Jeep.
Multimedia
Photographs
Documents
Article Index
| Date | Article | Author/Source |
|---|
| 8 May 2002 | New website offers quality Jeep® mountain bikes at wholesale prices. | National Warehouse Bike Center |
| 2 July 2003 | New Parts4Jeeps.Com Website Offers OEM Jeep Parts At Wholesale Prices | Parts4Jeeps.com |
| 14 November 2003 | Toledo, Ohio, Man Sells Advertising Space on Jeep | Boodie Productions |
| 10 April 2004 | Corey Andrew selected to perform at the 2004 New York Auto Show presented by Camp Jeep® in collaboration with Sonicbids® | Xcalibur Records, LLC |
| 22 May 2006 | Options for Lifting Your Jeep | Al Carl |
| 31 May 2006 | How To Build Up Your Jeep | Al Carl |
| 1 February 2007 | Jeep's Target Market Covers Everyone | Anthony Fontanelle |
| 4 January 2011 | Jeep Brings Rocks & Road Tour to San Diego | Ingram Park Chrysler Jeep Dodge |
| 24 June 2012 | Please vote - every day (until June 29) | Gus Philpott, The Woodstock Advocate |
| 31 October 2012 | Chrysler CEO Denies Plans to Shift Jobs to China | VOA Breaking News |
| 8 January 2013 | Finding A Jeep Dealer: Experts Makes It Easy | Rina Davis |
| 8 January 2013 | Hunting For Jeep Parts? Experts Prefer The Original | Rina Rosewood |
| 8 January 2013 | New Jeep, The: Drivers' Dream Adventure Ride | Rina Rosewood |
| 9 January 2013 | For Maximum Beach Driving Fun, Get The Best Jeep Service Offers | Rina Davis |
| 9 January 2013 | The Virtues Of A Jeep - Drivers Key To Off-Road Fun | Rina Davis |
| 11 January 2013 | Rebuilt Jeep Engines Now Sold to SUV Owners at RemanufacturedEnginesforSale.com | RemanufactuedEnginesforSale.com |
| 19 February 2013 | Oops. @Jeep twitter account gets hacked #Jeepfail  | Matt Hubbard, Speedmonkey |
| 29 October 2013 | Jones The Joke Joins Jeep | Geoff Maxted, DriveWrite Automotive |
| 4 January 2014 | 4WD Awards Winners in Holiday “Deck Your Jeep” Photo Contest | 4Wheel Drive Hardware |
| 11 March 2016 | 4 Wheel Parts Partners With Brandmotion to Offer 360⁰Vision Systems for Jeeps | 4 Wheel Parts |
| 12 March 2016 | 4WD Names Winner in “Bucket List Adventure” Sweepstakes to Easter Jeep Safari | 4Wheel Drive Hardware |
| 14 April 2016 | New at Summit Racing Equipment: Artec Industries Off-Road Products for Jeep | Summit Racing Equipment |
| 25 June 2016 | 4WD Now Carrying Weigh-Safe Hitches for Jeeps | 4Wheel Drive Hardware |
| 30 July 2016 | 4 Wheel Parts Sponsoring All-4-Fun Jeep 50th Anniversary Event | 4 Wheel Parts |
| 5 August 2016 | 4WD Now Selling Jammock 2.0 Hammock for Jeeps | 4Wheel Drive Hardware |
| 6 September 2016 | In Honor of Jeep's 75th Anniversary & Celebrating the Next 75 Years of Jeep City in Toledo | Congressional Record: Rep. Marcy Kaptur |
| 15 May 2020 | Saluting 3,000 Toledo Jeep Workers to `Return-To-Work' Monday by State | Congressional Record: Rep. Marcy Kaptur |
| 17 November 2020 | Jeep Enthusiasts Can Now Better Explore the Great Outdoors with Quadratec’s Impressive Round-Up of High-quality Camping and Overlanding Gear | Quadratec, Inc. |
Merchandise
| Type & Item # | Name | Details |
|---|
| Model Kit - MPC 1-0758 | Golden Hawk Special Edition Jeep CJ | Golden Wheels Bonus, 1:25 scale |
