I received this letter from William Spear, who owns one of the
Checker-produced Bantam jeeps of WWII. Very interesting reading. If you
are bored with the academic side of WWII military vehicles, don't read it,
but if you are intrigued (as I am) by the continued pseudo-history which you
read in many historical journals, have a look.
Date: Sunday, January 28, 2001 1:20 AM
Subject: Letter to the editor
As a publicity assistant for the Club Norm asked me to respond to
another article (Old Cars Weekly) stating that Willys created the
jeep. Anyone want to ad or subtract anything before I fire it off? I
know, it's long. Tough.
________
Letter to the Editor
Old Cars Weekly
Your "Story of the Jeep" (Old Cars January 4,2001 p.18) was a deep
disappointment to those of us in the two Bantam Clubs. Mr. Wyss'
completely unsupported---and unsupportable---assertion that "The Jeep
was created by Willys-Overland" is not only flatly wrong but is a
huge disservice to the jeeps brilliant engineer and designer, Karl
Probst and the hard working and recourseful people at Bantam who
developed the car.
In fact, Willys had nothing whatsoever to do with the creation of the
jeep, despite its efforts, and the efforts of the six or seven
subsequent holders of the "Jeep" franchise to create the impression
that it did.
Perhaps you are not willing to take the word of some uncredentialed
reader. How about a Cease and Desist Order from the Federal Trade
Commission? After thousands of hours of sworn testimony they came to
this conclusion.
"In truth and in fact, the idea of creating the jeep was originated
by the American Bantam Car Co. of Butler Pa, in collaboration with
certain officers of the United States Army, and the same was
developed by the American Bantam Car Co. in collaboration with said
officers and not by the respondent Willys-Overland Motors,Inc."
Willys was ordered to "cease and desist from representing" that it
had "created or designed the automotive vehicle known as the Jeep."
Unfortunately the order has not stopped what is now three full
generations, 60 years, of journalists, writers and self appointed
"historians" from either furthering the lie or trying desperately to
denigrate this remarkable Bantam achievement.
I haven't seen a bald faced misstatement as above for a long time.
These days most people know Willys didn't create the jeep, but they
attempt to belittle Bantam. The two most usual ploys are employed in
your article. The first is to suggest that the Army bid specs were so
specific that all Bantam had to do was sort of put the jeep together
like a kit car. Even if this were true, which it isn't, no one wants
to report that the Army came to Butler without a clue as to what they
wanted, and when they left a few days later they miraculously had the
specs (which they promptly broadcast to Bantam's dumbfounded horror
to 135 manufacturers). I don't suppose the results had anything to do
with the fact that Probst and Harold Crist were a part of this spec
development team, the former a man who had built his first motor
vehicle in the 19th century, studied under Charles Kettering at Ohio
State and had 40 or 50 years of design and engineering experience
under his belt. I guess we are supposed to believe that Sergeant
Bilko showed guys like this a thing or two.
The second ploy is to describe the early Bantams as "prototypes"
thereby side stepping the whole issue of the Bantam's achievement,
and grudgingly admitting maybe that the BRC was somewhat "jeep like",
but really a sort of a deep, dark, ancient ancestor. Ironically very
often these same people cite the Howie "Belly Flopper" as a jeep
ancestor entitled to much more praise than the Bantam (even though
it wasn't anything at all like a jeep, was intended to serve a
different mission, and would have been useless in combat) and the
Bantam was in fact the jeep that we know today. Your writer does not
fail to employ this arrant nonsense. (According to him, Bantam didn't
build the jeep, it built a "military vehicle prototype".) The mark of
a great designer and engineer is how close the abstract idea and
drawings for it come to the final desired result. The Bantam was
right on the money. Very little had to be changed on the Bantam which
was driven 250 miles to Camp Holabird from Butler, began it's testing
the moment it rolled through the gates and sailed through its tests
with flying colors. It did so well the tests were cut short from 30
to 20 days, and an order given for the remaining sixty nine units.
There was never any comment that the BRC was under powered or
deficient in any way. In fact the Russians who were actually fighting
the Nazis were given a choice of all three jeeps and chose the
Bantam for it's economy and light weight.
Meanwhile, while Bantam was delivering jeeps to the Army (and there
is very credible sworn testimony by the way that the Army testers
called the Bantam a "jeep" from the beginning) where was Willys?
Well, Willys had been given the Probst drawings by the Army
practically before the ink was dry (and long before Bantam finished
BRC#1) on the theory that they owned the plans and they could do what
they wanted with them. Bantam was of course furious, but in no
position to argue. And clearly, now that the jeep had been designed,
built and tested, and they had been allowed to carefully inspect,
measure and photograph the Bantam at Holabird, they were very
interested indeed in getting a contract to build them. After all,
they were as broke as Bantam. The Army clearly thought Willys and the
designer Bantam were nuisances and would far rather have had Ford
build them all, but the 9N tractor engined GP wasn't going to cut it.
Another story.
Finally on November 11. 1940 nearly two months after Bantams were
actively being used in the field and the Army was clamoring for more
"jeeps" either Bantams or Fords (never having heard of Willys),
Willys delivered something to Holabird called the "Quad". This is the
car you see in recent Chrysler Daimler ads that attempt to make you
believe it was the first jeep when in fact it was only the first
Willys jeep. And not a very good one either. It was rejected almost
out of hand. This prototype was not only grossly overweight and out
of spec, it's testing proved it to be a miserable failure. I have
been criticized for using this phrase, but face it, it barely
staggered through a few weeks of it's tests needing two new engines
(a total of three of the much vaunted "Go Devil" engines in less than
5,000 miles) the right side frame rail broke at 5000 miles,
suspension, springs and clutch all failed repeatedly throughout the
test. Also declared inadequate by the Army were the cooling system,
ignition, transmission etc. What else would you call it?
But in spite of all this raw fact, a lot of which is freely available
on the internet and even on television we Bantam people have keep
laboring through articles like this one and see the same misguided
rehash of jeep mythology again and again. The excellent "One Summer
in Butler" an article in Automobile Quarterly Vol 14 #4 has been on
the record for 25 years and never disputed; is it too much to ask
that if no actual original historical research is going to be
undertaken, that at least you require your writers to do research
that would be required for say, the average high school essay? There
are thousands and thousands of pages of sworn testimony and exhibits
about the first jeeps in the US Archives both in the mentioned FTC
hearings, but similar hearings held by then Senator Harry Truman to
the same basic effect. I have yet to read an article or book that
indicates that anyone has even bothered to look at any of it, let
alone try to piece the story together.
At the bottom of it, here is what I don't understand. What possible
motivation is there 60 years after the fact to continually deny
Bantam and Probst their rightful place in automotive history? We all
know and agree that both Willys and Fords were fine vehicles as they
eventually developed. No argument there. We can even agree that
Bantam itself was not big enough to supply all the jeeps needed, but
then, either was Willys, and at that I have recently learned that
Bantam was in active negotiations with Checker to build it's
overflow. But does the lack of production facilities mean Bantam
should be denied credit for their brilliant achievement in designing
the car? With the possible exception of the Model T (and that is
noted most for manufacturing technique and marketing rather than the
car itself) the jeep is the most significant American vehicle ever
designed. Let's give credit where credit is due.
The Jeep was created by Bantam. The first car of the type to be
called a jeep was a Bantam. The first jeep to be commissioned in the
US Army was a Bantam, and I believe it could be shown that the Bantam
was the first jeep to see active service in a war.
Bill Spear
Juneau, Alaska
Member Pacific Bantam and Austin Club, American Austin and Bantam
Club, and owner of Checker Bantam RC #101.
You have my permission to print this letter in it's entirety, but not
in an abridged version unless first cleared by me. Thank you, Bill
Spear
The World's Most Wonderful Pins
http://www.wmspear.com
Talismans, amulets and charms for an uncertain world.
174 S Franklin Suite201
Juneau, Alaska 99801
907 586-2209v
907 586-6858f
mailto:bill@wmspear.com
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Mon Feb 05 2001 - 07:13:52 PST