Bantam BRC Mk II. Photos courtesy Bantam Jeep Historic Festival.
If Fiat-Chrysler decides to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the Jeep brand, it likely won’t do so until next year, citing the Willys MA/MB as the direct progenitor of the modern Jeep. However, at least a couple celebrations will focus on this year’s anniversary of the Bantam Reconnaissance Car – what many consider to be the first Jeep ancestor – including one that expects to set the world record for largest all-Jeep parade with as many as 2,500 vehicles.
While scout/recon cars and four-wheel-drive vehicles certainly existed in the U.S. Army’s fleet long before 1940 – stripped-down Model Ts with oversize tires and Marmon-Herrington four-wheel-drive conversions on civilian truck chassis served a variety of military purposes during the Twenties and Thirties – it took the onset of World War II for the Army to begin to rethink exactly how it intended to replace the horse on the battlefield. So in mid-June 1940, a panel of engineers in the Army’s Quartermaster Corps drew up specifications for a lightweight go-anywhere quarter-ton four-wheel-drive vehicle and invited as many as 135 manufacturers to submit designs according to those specifications.
Of those 135, just one submitted a viable design by the July 22 deadline. Bantam of Butler, Pennsylvania, had reinvented itself in 1937 and kept auto production going, but its executives knew that the company needed a lifeline, and they saw military contracts as the best way to save the company. Relying on the talents of Karl Probst, a journeyman designer who had worked for Ford, Chalmers, Peerless, and Reo, among others, Bantam delivered not only a set of blueprints, but also cost and weight estimates and supplier specifications.
The Army didn’t much like that Probst’s design came in overweight, but it accepted the plans anyway and told Probst and Bantam to deliver a prototype in seven weeks. Using as many off-the-shelf parts as possible, including a Continental four-cylinder, modified Studebaker Champion axles provided by Spicer, a Warner transmission, and Bantam instruments, the factory churned out the first Bantam Reconnaissance Car, which Probst and Bantam plant manager Harold Crist drove from Butler to Fort Holabird with about half an hour to spare before the 5 p.m. September 23 deadline.
Bantam Reconnaissance Car prototype during testing at Fort Holabird, 1940.
By all accounts, the BRC performed admirably at both Holabird and Fort Knox, where the Army tested it through the end of October, subjecting it to a variety of terrain and heavy brush. It even held up well when, on its way from Fort Knox back to Butler, it collided with a 1-1/2-ton truck at 40 MPH and came away with only minor damage.
Yet Army officials felt the need to hedge their bets and brought in Willys and Ford to design their own prototypes based roughly on Probst’s design. Both delivered their vehicles in November 1940, and while Bantam would receive orders for more than 2,600 of its BRC-40 jeeps during World War II, the Army turned instead to Willys and Ford to churn out more than 600,000 MBs and GPWs during the war according to standardized design specifications it laid out in July 1941.
Bantam, which continued auto production only through October 1940, lasted out the war building trailers and landing gear. According to historian Robert Cunningham, Bantam remained in business after the war producing civilian versions of its military trailers as well as semi trailers until the mid-1950s, when the company shut down for good. Willys, meanwhile, positioned itself during the war as the originator of the Jeep and capitalized on that publicity after the war when it began production of the popular and profitable civilian Jeep, a brand that has since passed through the hands of Kaiser, American Motors, and Chrysler.
Some people haven’t forgotten about the little Bantam that beat both Willys and Ford to the punch, however. Among them, David Kanally of Coppell, Texas, and the folks behind Butler’s annual Bantam Jeep Heritage Festival.
“As an engineering accomplishment, the design was a tour de force and is still recognized today as one of the world’s most inspired and aesthetic industrial designs,” Kanally wrote. “Built to be extremely light, but having the strength to withstand the rigors of the battlefield and perform almost any task, the Bantam was the classic manifestation of elegance: not too much, just enough.”
Butler, which still proudly proclaims itself as the birthplace of the Jeep, will hold its celebration first, offering up driving tours, driving skills competitions, trail rides, an off-road playground, and a show-and-shine as well as an exhibit of rare Jeeps. Patti Jo Lambert, spokesperson for the festival, said that the world record Jeep parade from the festival’s inaugural 2011 event – which attracted 1,106 Jeeps – proved enough of a success that festival organizers wanted to repeat it for the 75th anniversary, hoping to not only break the record, but attract as many as 2,500 Jeeps for the parade. Lambert said that the festival already has about 500 Jeeps registered for the parade.
Kanally’s event will take a smaller, more focused approach to celebrating the BRC’s 75th anniversary. According to his site, which includes a registry of the 50 or so remaining Bantam Reconnaissance Cars, Kanally intends to gather as many of the existing BRCs as possible for a BRC-only show and to dedicate a new private museum dedicated to the BRC.
The Bantam Jeep Heritage Festival will take place June 12-14 in Butler, Pennsylvania. For more information, visit BantamJeepFestival.com.
Kanally’s BRC 75th Anniversary Celebration Group will hold its event in conjunction with the Austin Bantam Society’s annual trophy meet October 22-24 in League City, Texas. For more information, visit http://ift.tt/1vjIfsZ.
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