Postal jeeps have long been used as delivery vehicles by the US postal service. As early as 1942, Willys had already foreseen the jeep as not just a military vehicle.
The first jeep was invented out of necessity and was built by hand in just two and three quarter months out of the ingenuity of one man. The US military were searching for a light, high-speed, all-terrain recon vehicle ever since the First World War. Necessity came to urgency as the Axis powers began a series of invasions across Europe & north of Africa making the storm of war imminent in the early months of 1940. The necessity for this vehicle became so pressing that the Army released an urgent call to auto manufacturers requesting for an operable prototype for this dream vehicle in a span of 49 days.
Bantam bested the Willys-Overland prototype with the help of Karl Probst. After testing the vehicle thoroughly, the Army asked Willys & Ford to submit their own prototypes from the Probst plans. Eventually, Willys modification came out superior with its powerful engine and the contract was awarded to them. Due to the production demand Willys shared the manufacturing with Ford.
Not a soul knows for sure where the word ?jeep? really came from. There are a lot of theories about it, the most popular being the slur of the acronym G.P. which stands for General Purpose vehicle, the Army designation for it.
The Willys company applied for a trademark for Jeep in 1950. Trademark was then passed down to Kaiser then to American Motors Corporation and now to Chrysler Corp.
The original postal jeep was referred to as dispatcher jeep then shortened to DJ. It was produced in 1955 using the body style of the older CJ. But the DJ came with an optional column shift and a new engine. Different options for the body were given such as a hard top, a soft top, or a full van body.
Willys released the Jeep Gala for export during the early part of 1959. It became popular in Mexico, Hawaii, & the Caribbean as a resort vehicle equipped with top fringes, gay trimmings, & candy stripes. In the fall of that year, a comparable model, Jeep Surrey, came out in the US. Targeted for resorts and tourist spots, it had a striped soft top with a matching seat cover mimicking a continental tire.
The name Jeep comes from the military vehicle designation GP (government purposes). Sources dispute this saying that the jeep was used for specific things and never referred to as Government Purposes. The Ford GPW actually stands for G-government use, P to describe the 80" wheelbase, and the W to indicate it's Willy Overland engine. Some suggest the name came from soldiers that named it after a popular character in the cartoon Popeye, Eugene the Jeep.
The definition of Jeep describes it as 4 wheel drive, ½-1 ½ ton vehicle for recon or other Army function.
In early 1941 the company Willys Overland showed the Jeeps off the road performance by driving it up the steps to the Capital building in Washington, DC.
The company Willys Overland in June 1950 registered the name Jeep as their own.
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