World War II is the war that left very horrific memories behind and these memories soars us even a century after but it also provided the bases to build a general purpose all-terrain and all wheel drive vehicle known to the world as “Jeep.” It was the World War II when Japan turned into a living hell on earth after two of its main stream cities – Nagasaki and Hiroshima – were attacked with Nuclear Bombs by the U.S Army. Death toll reached to more than 3 million casualties within a few minutes, and after this war, the overall death toll climbed to nearly 80 million including armed forces and civilians all across the world. During those Godforsaken days, a group of dedicated engineers was working on the project of developing an all wheel drive general purpose vehicle to help Armed Forces, finally on the August 1, 1941, the world witnessed the birth of Jeep, a star destined to shine on the skies for years to come.
We can’t exactly tell about the evolution of the word “Jeep” that first used to mean the all-wheel drive U.S army vehicle. The most extensively held assumption is that the military term GP that means Government Purposes or General Purpose was slurred into the word Jeep just like the modern HMMWV (for High-Mobility Multi-purpose Wheeled Vehicle) has develop into the Humvee. It was the first army vehicle that developed on urgent bases to fulfil the needs of U.S army for World War II. The birth of Jeep with powerful engine and all wheel drive was aimed at fulfilling one and only one purpose, serve military at all terrains and provides them a swift mobility in the battle field. It was developed in very short time, some says, only in seven weeks by three different automakers, namely the Bantam, Ford and Willys. They produced more than one million Jeeps to use in World War II. One of the military official said that he found the Jeep as loyal and faithful as his own dog, strong as a mule and agile as a goat. Today, Jeep is offering many models with great mobility systems and successfully rivals the brands like Land Rover, Toyota etc all across the globe.
