Jeep's current product range consists solely of sport utility vehicles—both crossovers and fully off-road worthy SUVs and models, including one pickup truck.

[9] In the U.S. alone, over 2400 dealerships hold franchise rights to sell Jeep-branded vehicles, and if Jeep were spun off into a separate company, it is estimated to be worth between $22 and $33.5 billion—slightly more than all of FCA (US).

[13] The Jeep became the primary light four-wheel-drive vehicle of the United States Armed Forces and the Allies during World War II, as well as the postwar period.

Doug Stewart noted:[14] "The spartan, cramped, and unstintingly functional jeep became the ubiquitous World War II four-wheeled personification of Yankee ingenuity and cocky, can-do determination."

It is the precursor of subsequent generations of military light utility vehicles such as the Humvee, and inspired the creation of civilian analogs such as the original Series I Land Rover.

When it became clear that the United States would be involved in the European theater of World War II, the Army contacted 135 companies to create working prototypes of a four-wheel drive reconnaissance car.

American Bantam had only a small staff with nobody to draft the vehicle plans, so chief engineer Harold Crist[20] hired Karl Probst, a talented freelance designer from Detroit.

[25] American Bantam, the creators of the first Jeep, built approximately 2,700 of them to the BRC-40 design, but spent the rest of the war building heavy-duty trailers for the Army.

The cost per vehicle trended upwards as the war continued from the price under the first contract from Willys at US$648.74 (Ford's was $782.59 per unit; these figures are equivalent to $10369 and $12508 in 2023, respectively[28]).

Jeeps were used for many purposes, including cable laying, sawmilling, as firefighting pumpers, field ambulances, tractors, and, with suitable wheels, would run on railway tracks.

Ermey suggests that soldiers at the time were so impressed with the new vehicles that they informally named it after Eugene the Jeep, a character in the Thimble Theatre comic strip and cartoons created by E. C. Segar, as early as mid-March 1936.

[40][41] The word "jeep", however, was used as early as World War I, as U.S. Army slang for new uninitiated recruits, or by mechanics to refer to new, unproven vehicles.

[39] Words of the Fighting Forces by Clinton A. Sanders, a dictionary of military slang, published in 1942, in the library at The Pentagon gives this definition: Jeep: A four-wheel drive vehicle of one-half- to one-and-one-half-ton [0.45 to 1.36 tonnes] capacity for reconnaissance or other army duty.

Early in 1941, Willys-Overland demonstrated the vehicle's off-road capability by having it drive up the steps of the United States Capitol, driven by Willys test driver Irving "Red" Hausmann, who had recently heard soldiers at Fort Holabird calling it a "jeep".

When asked by syndicated columnist Katharine Hillyer for the Washington Daily News (or by a bystander, according to another account) what it was called, Hausmann answered, "It's a jeep."

Katharine Hillyer's article was published nationally on February 19, 1941, and included a picture of the vehicle with the caption: LAWMAKERS TAKE A RIDE – With Senator Meade, of New York, at the wheel, and Representative Thomas, of New Jersey, sitting beside him, one of the Army's new scout cars, known as "jeeps" or "quads", climbs up the Capitol steps in a demonstration yesterday.

Soldiers in the rear seat for gunners were unperturbed.Although the term was also military slang for vehicles that were untried or untested, this exposure caused all other jeep references to fade, leaving the 4×4 with the name.

The Federal Trade Commission initially ruled in favor of Bantam in May 1943, largely ignoring Minneapolis-Moline's claim, and continued to scold Willys-Overland after the war for its advertising.

[44] Willys had also seriously considered the brand name AGRIJEEP, and was granted the trademark for it in December 1944, but instead the civilian production models as of 1945 were marketed as the "Universal Jeep", which reflected a wider range of uses outside of farming.

The General Motors Hummer and Chrysler Jeep have been waging battle in U.S. courts over the right to use seven slots in their respective radiator grilles.

In addition to higher ground clearance, many owners aim to increase suspension articulation or "flex" to give their Jeeps greatly improved off-road capabilities.

Useful features of the smaller Jeeps are their short wheelbases, narrow frames, ample approach, breakover, and departure angles, thus enabling them to traverse through places where full-size four-wheel drives have difficulty.

An attempt to re-enter the passenger-car market in 1952 with the Willys Aero sedan proved unsuccessful, and ended with the company's acquisition by Kaiser Motors in 1953, for $60 million.

[47] The utility vehicles complemented AMC's passenger car business by sharing components, achieving volume efficiencies, as well as capitalizing on Jeep's international and government markets.

In 1971, AMC spun off Jeep's commercial, postal, and military vehicle lines into a separate subsidiary, AM General – the company that later developed the M998 Humvee.

Renault began selling Jeeps through their European dealerships soon thereafter, beginning in Belgium and France, gradually supplanting a number of independent importers.

By 1987, the automobile markets had changed and Renault itself was experiencing financial troubles, stemming from their heavy investment into AMC while simultaneously laying workers off in France; this led to the assassination of then-Renault CEO Georges Besse in 1986 by the French extremist group Action Directe.

[52][53][54] After more than 40 years, the four-wheel drive utility vehicles brand that had been a profitable niche for smaller automakers fell into the hands of one of the Big Three; Jeep was the only AMC brand continued by Chrysler after the acquisition, partnered with the new Eagle marque (created for legal reasons involving Renault's sale of the AMC assets to Chrysler) as the Jeep-Eagle division.

These early Jeeps are frequently referred to as "flat-fenders" because their front fenders were completely flat and straight, just as on the original WW II model (the Willys MB and identical Ford GPW).

The CJ-4 exists only as a single 1951 prototype and constitutes the "missing link" between the flat-fendered CJ-2A and CJ-3A/B, and the subsequent Jeeps with new bodies, featuring rounded fenders and hoods, beginning with the 1955 CJ-5, first introduced as the military Willys MD (or M38A1).