short question

The quick answer is "yes", but it is kind of a gray area because there were multiple companies working on 'jeep' variations from Bantam's design original design from 1939-1940, Willy's-Overland being one of those companies. If I remember correctly from idle reading, the need for the 'jeep' was made 'public' in '39 and prototypes were built in '40 and production models in '41. None of these were called 'jeeps' tho.

Short questi> In the Jeep Gear section of the Jeep magazine....there is the number 41 on

Yeah like Bill...he was around way back then wasn't he? ;-)

Snow ..."hides"

The name "Jeep" comes from the designation "GP" as in "General Purpose"..

-- History is only the past if we choose to do nothing about it..

affectionately

That's one theory. (by the way, I believe GP is a vehicle classification, not "General Purpose") Lots of vehicles were called "Jeep", too. This one just stuck. Where's Brian?

As an addendum..

Some people say the Jeep name came from the slurring of the acronym G.P. for General Purpose vehicle, the designation the Army gave to the new vehicle.

Another explanation, according to Col. A.W. Herrington, is that the name was used in Oklahoma as early as 1934 to designate a truck equipped with special equipment for drilling oil wells.

Others claim the vehicle was called a "Jeep," in reference to the character "Eugene the Jeep" in the 1936 Popeye comic strip by E.C. Edgar. Eugene the Jeep was a small, impish looking animal that had the power to travel back and forth between dimensions and could solve all sorts of problems.

Yet another version is that Irving "Red" Haussman, a Willys-Overland test-driver who tested the first pilot model picked up the Jeep name that some soldiers at Camp Holabird had been using. Shortly thereafter, Red gave a demonstration ride to a group of dignitaries in Washington, D.C. Among the group was Katherine Hillyer, a reporter for the Washington Daily News who wrote an article about the vehicle that was published in February 1941 with the photo caption headline, "Jeep Creeps Up Capitol Steps." + This was perhaps the first reference to the vehicles' Jeep name by the media.

I still think that the first is the most plausible..

-- History is only the past if we choose to do nothing about it..