In 1940, after World War II had broken out, the united states general staff ordered different factories to style a light multi-purpose car with all-wheel drive. The United states Bantam business, Willys Overland, and Ford Motor Co. competed with each other. Willys model was plumped for, which, after a short run of 1500 automobiles, went into mass production at the beginning of 1941 and reached an overall total production of 640.000 devices from which 277.000 pieces had been generated by Ford under a licensing agreement. This demonstrates that the Jeep ended up being probably the most widely released light car of war industry during World War II.