Evans and Ward acquired the assets of the American Austin Car Company during its liquidation in August 1935, initially operating as Evans Operations Inc. before incorporating the American Bantam Car Company in Pennsylvania in June 1936. The original Austin tooling was retained but thoroughly refreshed: Evans enlisted Count Alexis de Sakhnoffsky, who had designed the original Austin body, to visit the factory in Butler, Pennsylvania, and design new front and rear fenders and a new front grille. The Austin engine was also substantially reworked, adopting a new aluminum induction system and cylinder head, a pressurized oil system, a 7:1 compression ratio, and plain babbitt crankshaft bearings — lifting output to 20 horsepower at 4,000 rpm, a 50 percent improvement, while retaining the original 45.6 cubic inch displacement. The revamped 1937 model range spanned roadsters, delivery vans, light trucks, and woodie station wagons, though total production across all body styles amounted to roughly 6,000 vehicles.
American Bantam's most consequential contribution was the design and prototype construction of the original reconnaissance car that became the World War II jeep. The idea of a small, durable vehicle to replace the horse was championed by Bantam salesman Charles "Harry" Payne, a retired Navy commander, working in close coordination with Robert Brown, a civilian consultant at the U.S. Army Quartermaster Corps, Bantam chief engineer Harold Crist, and company president Frank Fenn. During the spring of 1940 these men laid out the specifications for the first Bantam Reconnaissance Car. Crist did the central engineering work; Karl Probst formalized and drafted the pre-existing layout Crist had conceived.
American Bantam delivered the first jeep to the Quartermaster Corps on 23 September 1940 at Camp Holabird, a U.S. Army base east of Baltimore, Maryland. Representatives from Ford and Willys-Overland were present during testing. Bantam subsequently launched serial production of the improved Mark II, also known as the BRC-60, and was the sole manufacturer of jeeps in U.S. Army service throughout 1940. The word "Jeep" first appeared in a January 1941 newspaper article explicitly naming Bantam as the manufacturer — at that point the only company that had fulfilled purchase orders.
The Army, having concerns about Bantam's production capacity at scale, reopened the contract process and eventually awarded the bulk of orders to Willys-Overland and Ford. The original BRC-40 designs were shared with both companies, and their vehicles became the dominant wartime jeep variants. Bantam shifted to producing jeep trailers, designated the T-3. In total, American Bantam built 2,675 jeeps between 1940 and 1943; more than half of the initial production went to the British Army, with some vehicles also reaching the Soviet Union.
Beyond jeeps and trailers, American Bantam contributed to the war effort through the manufacture of amphibious cargo trailers, aircraft controls, and torpedo engines and tail gearing. Car production ceased on 18 August 1943. In the same year, Bantam ran an advertising campaign asserting "Ivan got his first Jeep from Bantam" in direct response to a trademark application filed by Willys-Overland on 13 February 1943 seeking to register "JEEP" as its exclusive property.
After the war, the company pivoted to manufacturing trailers for the consumer market. This continued until 1956, when American Rolling Mills acquired the company. Though Bantam never received the production volumes its jeep invention warranted, its claim to having designed and built the original prototype is broadly recognized in automotive and military history.
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