Truly sad Bantam was not allowed to manufacture the Jeep, just a matching trailer. Missing is how the name Jeep came about. Army designation General Purpose Vehicle, GP, GP started to be pronounce Jeep. On the other hand, how did Hummer get its names?
It was all about production numbers. Bantam simply didn’t have the capacity for volume production. Willys did, but when even Willys’ capacity proved insufficient, then Ford was brought into the situation.
The point being, with multiple manufactures involved, Bantam should have been allowed to continue.
Hummer was the High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle or HMMWV by AM General
Bantam designed and built the prototypes on its own dime and got very little for it The design was given to Willys and then Ford who made a ton of money Unfortunately Bantam went out of business
They were already running on fumes by the late '30s. Their CEO had bought-out American Austin in 1935, and while his redesign efforts to create the American Bantam car were admirable, they still struggled with sales. By 1940, they were selling fewer than 5,000 cars per year–which was less than Austin’s sales figures had been. Their total Jeep-building amounted to less than 3k units, whereas Willys/Ford were able to churn-out more than 600,000 in total. American Bantam closed their doors and their books in 1956.
Sorry you did not get the humor.