1941General sourceWell documented
The Jeep Goes to War
On the timeline · around 1941 ·
What happened
As the United States prepared for the Second World War, the Army called for a light, rugged, four-wheel-drive reconnaissance vehicle. Willys-Overland's design, standardized in 1941 and eventually built in the hundreds of thousands (also by Ford), became the Jeep — a go-anywhere workhorse that served on every front of the war.
Why it matters
The wartime Jeep proved the mass appeal of tough four-wheel-drive vehicles and, after 1945, spawned the civilian Jeep — a direct ancestor of the SUVs and off-roaders that would come to dominate the road decades later.
Sources
- Jeep (Stellantis). Jeep History: The 1940s · General source