vintage ads

[ken in texas]

Finally took time to look at the vintage ads at side of page.Looked at one about a1937 MMJeep,looked kinda like a tug.Had family that cut downford grain trucks in the late 1930s to pull grain combines and called them jeeps.Was that a slang name before the military used it?

 

[rustyj]

The name Jeep was the name of a slug-shaped being in one of the newspaper strips comics, long before the second war, when it became the name of the little scout car-Jeep.
I van remember when a fellow worked at the local amusement park whom we called the "Jeep" because he looked like the cartoon character. That comic is where the name originated, back along in the 30's. I think it was the Popeye comic, and the characters whole name was "Eugene the Jeep"!

 

[rrlund]

My Dad had a book that said the name Jeep came from the Minneapolis Moline UDLX. When they didn't go over as an ag tractor because of the price,MM added heavier bumpers and military tires and sold them to the military. A soldier said they looked like Eugene the Jeep from the Popeye cartoons. That book claims that MM even sued Willys-Overland over the name but lost since it was just a nickname that a soldier had given it. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

 

[JD 41 B]

This would qualify as "my two cents" response but I always heard that jeep name came from the army as these vehicles were "general purpose" vehicles or "gp's" or "jeeps".