The Jeep

[Bombardier]

Can aybody tell me the difference between the Hotchkiss jeep, Willys jeep . They look very alike to me. :?

[Xtreme]

The Willys is a..... Willys and the hotchkiss well......its a Hotchkiss (french built).

Both jeeps were of a very similar design and construction. During the War both companies ran out of components at one time or another so they borrowed from each other. This resulted in a very large amount of jeeps in use during the war being made up of both companies parts.

You will struggle today to find either a completely original Hotchkiss or a Willys because of this.

There are a large number of minor differences infact too many to mention here but here is one that springs to mind.

On the Hotchkiss you will find 2 x 12 volt batteries in the engine compartment on the right hand side with the air cleaner. on the willys you will find a 6 or 12 volt battery on the left hand side with the air cleaner.

Point to note: You could look into the engine compartment and see a Willys engine that is mounted on a Hotchkiss Jeep
hope this helps a bit bm;

[Bombardier]

Thanks for that, anymore snippets of info for me?. alb;

[Xtreme]

Further to my last information perhaps I should tell you that a third jeep was produced by Ford again very similar to the Hotchkiss and Willys jeeps.

One of the Main differences between all three that I can remember is that the steering wheels were of different thicknesses.

Hotchkiss being the thickest, ford slightly slimmer and the Willys thinner still. bm;

[rotorwash]

That is very interesting. Here in the States I don't think we ever saw a Hotchkiss and there were very few Fords, but Willys were everywhere when I was growing up. My dad had one, a 1947, still made in the WWII pattern with very few external changes. I tried to destroy it, then my brother after me, but I think it survived us both and still may be running somewhere in the mountains.

RW

[Bill Farnie]

This thread really peaked my interest so I did a little searching and this site is excellent. Scroll down to the WW II section.

http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/jeep_man/

[Drone_pilot]

but does any one know were the name "Jeep" comes from.

It got its name from the fact that all soldiers like to shorten Military names, IE: GI, MT, MP and so on.

the JEEP was first called General Purpose IE, GP and from there you get Jeep, and the rest is history.

[flash]

the legion still use the willys jeep out in jabuti there still going like they just came out the packing ;)