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4 comments

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  • savage170
    Thanks that is interesting
    0
  • montanajoe
    • Community moderator
    Did not know this. Thanks for posting.
    0
  • Brookwood
    I always thought that the original JEEP was a cartoon character from the Popeye series! Ahhcccc a ca ca ca!
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  • yonson
    Lots of stories about the Jeep name. Minneapolis-Moline put together a vehicle for the military patterned after their luxury 1938 UDLX Comfortractor (with cab) and UOPN (w/o cab) and it was tested at the National Guard's facility Camp Ripley in MN that year. The soldiers were so impressed with its versatility that they nicknamed it Jeep after a magical cartoon creature in the Popeye comic strip a couple years earlier, that could go anywhere and do anything. In 1940 a competition for a new 1/4-ton general purpose (GP) vehicle for the military produced a winner - the design from American Bantam. Since that company could not produce their vehicle in the quantities needed, the contract went primarily to Ford. The moniker "Jeep" was usurped and although M-M tried to reclaim it for their own product, it was wartime and no one was listening.
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