All-American Wonder: The Military Jeep 1941-1945 BY Ray Cowdery & Merrill M Madsen, 1986
出版者 : North Star, 1986.; First Edition (1986年 1月 1日)
語言 : English
Softcover : 144 頁
ISBN-10 : 0-910667-10-1
ISBN-13 : 978-0910667101
FOREWARD
Seldom does the mind of man create a product for a highly specialized purpose which attains universal popularity without advertising. Consumer watches, cameras, radios, TVs and similar products are created specifically with mass appeal in mind and sales are supported by enormous mass advertising. It should be no surprise if these kinds of products become popular everywhere.
The jeep was developed as a light command-reconnaissance car to meet the specific needs of the American Army only, at a time when it was really just beginning to mechanize. Because of industrial war mobilization the jeep's makers could neither advertise it nor sell it to consumers. Yet, before WWII was over the jeep had achieved nearly universal popularity. Almost every man and boy on earth knew the jeep and knew that he wanted to own one. A half-century later, the jeep is still in- stantly recognizable and a highly de- sirable collector vehicle in its original form.
Such is the fate of the few products made that live up to the definition of the word "classic". If the word classic could be applied only to one automobile, it would have to be the jeep. What could be more elegant, simple, tasteful, un- pretentious, graceful, understated,harmonious, balanced or representative of something excellent of its kind? The definition of the word classic describes
a jeep perfectly. Fortunately for fans. of other automobiles, jeep people do not claim an exclusive right to the use of the word classic.
In 1952, the New York Museum of Modern Art did something they were highly qualified to do. They selected eight automobiles for a major exhibition to represent the essence of all the millions of cars ever made. The eight were: 1930 Mercedes SS, 1939 Talbot,1949 Cisitalia, 1939 Bentley, 1937 Cord,
1941 Lincoln Continental, 1948 MG-TC and a 1951 military jeep which they called "a perfect gadget". Each automobile, the museum said in its brochure. "has interior spaces conforming to an outer form, like buildings, but the designer's esthetic purpose is to enclose the functioning parts of an automobile as well as its passengers, in a package suggesting directed movement across the ground."
As with all things classic, "improved models" produced in later years never lived up to the reputation of the original. Many people (and for unknown reasons, the British in particular) tried to "im- prove" the jeep by adapting it to pur- poses for which it was never intended. Various branches of the British armed forces (SAS, LRDG, Signal Corps) as well as the Nuffield Organization (better) known for MG racing cars) took chisels, torches and saws in hand to create "the jeep as it should be". Looking back
