October 06, 2003

*Useless Word Fact

Ever wonder why jeeps are called..."jeeps"?

Because when the vehicles were first delivered to the army, they were called "general purpose" vehicles and had "GP" painted on their sides. This led to them being called "jeepees" which was later shortened to "jeep."

Posted by Jennifer at October 6, 2003 06:27 PM

Comments

That isn't completely true... There were two manufactures of the jeeps... The Ford models carried a GP in their alpha-neumeric designation, though it did not stand for general purpose... There has been the suggestion that the term jeep came from the little animal in the old popeye cartoons called "jeep" who could go just about anyplace with ease... (its late, after a very long day, and I promise I will look up the references on this if needed... but that will be later this week...)

Posted by: Tim at October 6, 2003 11:34 PM

I've always thought it was from "GP" thought that little creepy cartoon the jeep could go just about anywhere. Hmmmm, I'm going to have to watch the History channel's documentary on the Jeep. BTW, I've owned a Jeep most of my life, I love em.

Posted by: Sgt Hook at October 7, 2003 12:24 AM

Ok... I woke up early today... So I dug up a bit of backup for my statement... The "GP" was produced by Ford... The G means "government contract veihicle"... the P means "80 inch Wheelbase Reconnaissance Car" As far as I can tell quickly, the GP was only produced in 1941, to the tune of 4456 veihicles. Afterwards, the jeep was standardized for Ford and Willys so everything was interchangeable. Fords were then GPW's, and Willys was an MB...
And with that said, I now hand the history teachers chalk back over to you...

Posted by: Tim at October 7, 2003 07:47 AM

Jen - how come it doesn't say that I linked to you on this post? Just wondering. Thanks.

Posted by: The Bartender at October 7, 2003 09:11 PM


Jew