A co-worker told me today that the Jeep was invented in Butler. So, I looked it up. It was developed by the American Bantam Car Company in 1940 and was called the Bantam Pilot. Not exactly news, but still interesting.
This guy also said the Bantam Jeep was designed to a very specific width to fit between trees here in Western PA. And the trees that it could not fit between were small enough to simply knock over, making it excellent for driving in the woods with no trails. (I can’t find any infomation online to back this up.)
Come to Jeepfest if you’re interested. There’s a mini-trail ride/obstacle course, mud bog, rock crawling boulder pile, and a cruise to Butler to the birthplace of the Jeep.
Ya, they have been running those pittsburgh series almost constantly. I saw that show too. Very interesting. Did you know that during the war Ford, and I think Chrysler took over the project, because the Butler Bantam company couldn’t make them fast enough? Pretty cool segment…a must watch.
The government didn’t ‘feel’ that the Bantam company could produce a sufficient quantity of the vehicle that they had designed, so they gave all the plans and specs to Willys and Ford to copy. Although that was really a shitty thing to do, it was a time of war, and things are done that are shitty. What was really wrong was the fact that the government would not give Bantam a contract to produce any Jeeps. So they designed it, engineered it, built the prototype and delivered it for testing, and the government gave away their work.
Would be pretty interesting to see what would have happened had the American Bantam compnay survived. The little Bantam Speedster was an intersting car, and they sell for BIG bucks today
The 1930 American Austin reminds me of a period Ford that was left in the dryer too long…LOL
