Hitler's conquest of Europe and North Africa is 'to blame' for the development of the Jeep. This unprecedented form of 'Blitzkrieg' requires entirely new transport material. Britain is the last bridgehead holding out, but for how much longer? In order not to lose air supremacy, they are asking for lots of planes.

This also has to do with the development of the Jeep, because the planes are mainly built at General Motors. They have enough to do. That leaves Ford as almost the only manufacturer that has experience with really big series. And indeed, they will be involved in Jeep production. But let's first tell the story one by one.

Engineer Karl Probst is credited with the development of the Jeep. This may be true for the most part, but with the hindsight of what happened, one has to say that many are involved with thoughts and deeds. This starts with the determination of the necessity for such a construction.

Why, in fact, when it is so urgent, does one not fall back on what is already there? The answer is that there is simply nothing suitable for the somewhat complicated purpose. After all, soldiers and equipment are to be transported. The new vehicle should be manoeuvrable and light, but also able to overcome difficult terrain.

Manoeuvrable and light, motorised two-wheelers come to mind, but they have a hard time in rather sandy or muddy terrain. Moreover, the transport capacity is too limited. After all, heavy equipment has to be transported at least with a machine gun.

There are thoughts of using the often still existing T-model. After all, it has proven its off-road capabilities on many occasions, e.g. on farms. However, its production ended 13 years ago. No, the advantages of this concept can be clearly seen in two existing but too heavy all-wheel-drive vehicles from Jeffry/Nash and Ford.

Lightweight construction has always been a problem for American engineers. They think in terms of huge production margins and also the crucial reduction of production costs to achieve a healthy purchase price, but that excludes a bit of fiddling around for the last gram of kerb weight.

The army, probably all over the world, has its specialities. E.g. thinking straight. Although the time for a sensible development of an urgently needed vehicle has long since passed, they imagine that all they have to do is draw up a list of priorities and the potential developers of such a product will be lining up.

It gets even worse, because after the list of demands has already been sent to 135 companies, the engine power is doubled. The situation is very reminiscent of the talks between Hitler and Ferdinand Porsche about the development of a Volkswagen. The only difference is that Porsche was clever enough to simply accept Hitler's impossible conditions, even though he knew he could not meet them.

In 1940 in the USA, things were different. Instead of the expected enormous feedback, almost nothing happens. If we leave out the companies written to, which are not even capable of such production due to a lack of field of activity and workload with war production, the rest fail not only because of the mismatched demands, but also because of the time constraints.

More on this later. We come to the only two companies that took decisive action in response to the tender. You can probably guess the reason for their involvement: they are up to their necks in water. Only one company that is close to insolvency is grasping at straws.

There is the relatively small company American Bantam, which has been producing the American version of the Austin since 1937. As you can see, the production of small cars is one of the keys to solving the problem and, due to the low interest in such cars in pre-war America (after the war it's different!), it brings the necessary motivation.

Who was still building four-cylinder engines in the USA at that time? Six cylinders dominate, and at Ford, for example, there are already eight in a V-shape. They have since abandoned the four-cylinder in the A model. It was too slow and heavy. In addition, there is almost no experience with all-wheel drive, especially in the required light form, not only in the USA.

There are several reasons to believe that the US at that time saw the Nazi advance as a serious threat to itself. One would be to see in the exercises to seek out air raid shelters, another would be the development of the atomic bomb to get ahead of Hitler. But what does this have to do with the development of the Jeep. Let's ask the aforementioned Karl Probst.

He has his own company and, in the opinion of the Bantam boss, he is one of the few people who can be entrusted with this project. Only he can't be paid, unless the project is successful. But Probst is already used to such conditions, because times are not rosy. But somehow decisive for his involvement, he says, was the threat to his country from the Germans.

Imagine, as an engineer, you have a development contract without pay. It is Wednesday, 17 July 1940, and you are supposed to produce drawings by Monday of a car whose performance requirements, for example, have just been doubled. And to top it off, they have exactly 49 days after this Monday to build a prototype.

No, Karl Probst does not despair of the requirements. He is already completing the first tasks on the way from Detroit to Bantam's headquarters in Butler (Pennsylvania). There is a manufacturer of driven axles in Toledo. Bantam's own has just become unusable due to the increased demands of the military. But Probst finds what he is looking for.

Just looking at the weights. The unladen weight requirement is just under 600 kg, half of which is an additional payload. By way of comparison, a 1974 VW Golf 1, a recognised lightweight, weighs about 800 kg, without all- wheel drive, of course. The economical body equipment of the later Jeep and the small dimensions are perhaps favourable.

Perhaps we should briefly clarify at this point what all has to be accomplished by Monday. Bantam hoped until the very end to be able to use significant parts from existing prototypes or drives. The last thing to prove useless with the required increase in power is Bantam's own four-cylinder.

So it's not enough just to make drawings, you also have to be sure of the supply of the individual parts or assemblies. Basically, you lay down the dimensions and composition, which are difficult to change later. The cost and weight calculations, as well as filling out the army forms, take a similar amount of time as the drawings.

In the end, it is not entirely clear whether the true weight of just under 850 kg or the required 600 kg should be entered. The question will still haunt Probst and the Bantam operations manager Crist, but now they decide against the truth so as not to get kicked out in the first round without further review of the papers.

Dodge Command Vehicle I-6, 3,6 L (79,0 mm * 117,0 mm), 6,7:1, 63 kW (80 HP), 4 + 1 gears (terrain), wheelbase: 2.950 mm, length: 4.850 mm, kerb weight: 2300 kg.

Here you see one of the Army's next largest four-wheel drive vehicles. Its dimensions quickly make it clear how difficult the task set was. Of course, you can also see here that the Jeep is not the first four-wheel drive vehicle, but the first mass-produced, light four-wheel drive vehicle in motor vehicle history.