“It was Delmar G. Roos (1888 – 1960), one of the nation’s foremost automotive engineering geniuses who designed the Jeep in its present form. Two years ago the Army came up with a platform on wheels, built to carry two men with a machine gun, riding flat on their stomachs. Then the Army turned over sketchy specifications for a vehicle, weighing 1400 pounds, to Willy’s, Ford, and Bantam. ‘Build us a GP or general-purpose reconnaissance car’, they said, ‘that will be as light and practical as this belly-flopper’. That’s when Delmar Roos set to work. It was his model that the Army adopted. After the ‘bugs’ were ironed out, all three companies began making GP’s, or Jeeps as they were called, according to Roos’ Willy specifications.”
By war’s end Willys had produced 363,000 Jeeps.
