Re: [MV] the problem with jeep data

Todd Paisley (paisley@erols.com)
Mon, 27 Sep 1999 13:36:15 -0400

> Colin has the right attitude. You must keep your mind open to the
possibility of new data.
> Do not accept what has been written as the last word and never accept
something at face
> value until it has been proven to be correct.

I totally agree. The problem (and this is what I took issue with) is when
people make broad general statements like "Ford designed the MB/GPW body."
without backing up those claims with solid evidence. If it were anyone else
besides a few other people I regard as Jeep historians, I wouldn't have said
much. The problem is people look to you as an expert. It is reckless in my
opinion to try and stretch the truth to make Ford look good because people
will tend to believe you.

>BTW......The Ford data I have is not from published books rather from the
Ford
>Industrial Archives, Ford Archives at the Henry Ford Museum, National
Automotive
>History Collection and The National Archives (US). I have spent 4 1/2
months, 5 days
>a week, 8 hours a day in the Ford Industrial Archives alone.

I've done the exact same thing on the Willys-Overland side. What would be
nice would be to track down the Bantam factory records and the QMC Holabird
records to create a mosaic of all 4 records to get a better idea of what
really happened.

> OK, by now unless you're a rabid GPW/Ford/jeep nut I've probably put most
of
> you to sleep with this discourse. The point here is not to "show off" or
make it look
> like I'm the worlds greatest researcher but to show that research is a
great deal of
> hard work and, for every question you find the answer for, you will come
up with
> five more questions!

I agree. The more you research and look for answers, the more questions
seem to pop up. The more I think I know, the more I realize how little I
know.

>In the book "Jeep" by David Fetherston it states "Ford's only special
engineering contribution
>was a run of 49 four-wheel-steering GPW's. Bantam also built a run of eight
four-wheel-
>steering models but nothing came of this idea in production."
Humm.....the facts are a bit
>different. Willys had a 4 wheel steer pilot model delivered along WITH the
"Quad" pilot
>model (I have a copy of the actual government testing agreement, signed by
Barny Roos
>(V.P. Engineering), dated 13 Nov.1940).

There were actually 5 Quads built, of which the 5th unit was the 4-wheel
steer model. There also was a MB 4 wheel steer prototype called the MQ (or
MB-Q in some documents.)

> In the book " Essential Military Jeep" Graham Scott goes this one
better and actually
>contradicts himself. On page 25 he states "The basic generic Jeep was
based on a chassis
> made by Midlin Steel....." and on page 35 he states (writing about early
GPW frames)
>"These frames, made for Willys by the A.O. Smith Company, featured a
tubular front
>cross member,....." Jeez.....no wonder there's so much confusion about
the jeep history.
>The correct frame manufacturer? Midlin Steel for MB and very early GPW
(cost
> $19.86 each) and Murray Corp. for GPW (cost $20.05 each).

Do we want to debate this one too? ;) A.O. Smith did produce MB frame
parts for W-O. Whether they supplied the parts and were assembled by
Midland Steel or Midland supplied the parts and were assembled by A.O. Smith
is open to debate. The data can be interpretted both ways. (For example:
the A-548 "Clinch Nut - 3/8 - 24 Thd" (which is the captive nut on the frame
rails) is Midland part number # F-2009. The part actually was provided by
A.O. Smith as their part number # FU-91302.) Within the chaos, some
elements of truth are there. They just may not have been assigned to the
right fact. Books written today generally draw on other books for their
data. It is like the old children's game of whispering something in the ear
of someone and passing it to the next person in line. By the end of line,
what was originally stated had become blurred and distorted.

Todd Paisley

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