How the American Jeep got it's name

Well it could be said that Bantam owed royalties to Austin for the inspiration taken from them.

The exact Bantam design wasn't really the one taken forward to production. The very similar Willys vehicle possibly holds more of that crown (A v. murky area). The selection between Bantam, & Willys (and to some extent Ford) was competitive & each borrowed from the other. Despite bantam's protestations there was no way they could accommodate even the initial production order so Willys began the work.
After that, and due to the sheer demand for the new vehicle the mighty Ford took on production too, with Willys agreeing to sign over all the drawings without being paid.
Bantam got a mild crack of the production whip, but only within their limited means. Their 'jeep' probably saved the company financially, for a while, them being forced out in '42 having received orders for just under 3000 BRC40 vehicles (Ford & Willys's contributions each numbering in the hundreds of thousands).
I await correction on that potted development history... It's a long and specialised story and one I'm rather rusty on.

As to how the jeep got it's name... That one rumbles on & on.

 

Andy - Hugely complex mate. Seriously - people dedicate their lives to this stuff.
Overall the Ford & Willys vehicles are the same, with detail differences to crossmembers, nuts, panels etc... a minefield, and one for the specialists. They're largely interchangeable parts-wise - you see a lot of survivors with bits of both.

I'm not even happy that Bantam actually manufactured any of the Standardised pattern, and if they only received orders for their earlier design and the BRC40 (To the books!).

Outside of that, I do know that Bantams are extremely rare and expensive (one seen at Beltring, among hundreds of other jeeps) , but they couldn't easily be confused with 'normal' jeeps, being rather different in overall appearance.

Good web-summary of the early history:
Military Jeep History: Bantam to MB
(Useful site overall really - Military 1/4 Ton Trucks )

 

...and what was this "Austin Inspiration"?

Bantam were the successors of the US Austin company, their first prototype had an engine that was essentially that found in the Austin 7.

Having said that, and looking in Pat Ware's little history of Quarter tons - British Austin later (1943) borrowed a Willys MB chassis to prototype their own engine in, and in light of supply difficulties of the American vehicle were invited to produce a complete prototype 'similar' to the MB but using all British sourced components.

Swings and roundabouts.

The ones you see renovated look like brand new and straight from the production line.
There are companies that will build you a completely 'new' but authentic Wartime jeep using exclusively NOS parts. No need for renovation .

Edit:- As I just said to Andy, I'm scared of jeep history... and have probably already waded far out of my depth, the old confusion already coming on as 3 vehicles can essentially be called 'jeep' in a production/development context .

 

The British didn't do much better, even while getting it about right with The Land Rover & Gipsy.
Austin Champ - Owners Club - Home Page
Austin Champ
I love the Champ (we think of it as 'the Camp jeep'). Technologically impressive - but over-specified, over-complex, and over-priced could also all be applied to it

 

The direct relationship is that the light Austins were what showed certain engineers what a 'Light reconnaissance car' might actually be able to achieve. The original 'belly flopper' vehicle knocked up at Benning was essentially based on that machine. And the Belly-flopper can be seen as very significant in the interest in, and generation of, the jeep idea. Strange but true; an Austin 7 has a real place in jeep history.

I wouldn't deny that Land Rover was based on the jeep... even Land Rover fanatics have to grudgingly admit that. Why mess too much with such a proven concept...
Good humoured hisses and catcalls when this jeep visited the Beltring arena for comparison last year, during their '60 Years of the Land Rover' display :


Gipsy owners seem fiercely defensive of the uniqueness of their vehicle, they might look similar but apparently were more sophisticated beneath the skin - not a vehicle I know much about but much talk of superior suspension and smoother rides... and more rust.
Little page on the Gipsy's genesis and it's losing battle with the LR here, from the fine Austin Memories site:
Austin Gipsy

They're all similar, representing light off-roaders for 50-odd years.
Excepting possibly the Champ, which strikes me as a real attempt to evolve the simple quarter-ton into something else... maybe running before they could walk though.

 

I'd guess a model T would dwarf a 7? They really are tiny.
Not 4WD Jeff, neither was the belly-flopper, extreme lightness and oversized tyres were the main things that gave them any off-road ability.
The US QMC had been noodling about with AWD, and it was included in the specs that Bantam etc. worked towards.