There still are a lot of WWII surplus items out there like this NOS Headlamp that originally fit an American Bantam. What it was going to be used on in WWII is anyones guess. The small print on the lable states "WARNING: Unauthorized persons removing, defacing, or destroying this tag shall be subject to $10,000 fine or 30 years imprisonment or both. " It may help fund my '30 Roadster
Cool find, American Bantam were involved with the original Jeep design. As we know every manufacturer got into the war effort so I'm sure off the shelf parts like that got used on a bunch of stuff. I hope you haven't taken that sticker off! Although I guess you're now an "Authorized person" since you own it!
Yeah, A-B designed the Jeep under Govt contract & never got a production contract, just built the prototypes.
Next to bad mothing his mother, the mention of A B not being the inventer of the Jeep will really piss off a A B nut the most, even more than building an altered out of a Batam.
Too funny. By the time the Jeep got into full production it was more of a hybrid of all three competitors. I think A-B was the only one that actually met ALL the design criteria. Willys had a better motor and Ford pretty much designed the iconic simple stamped sheetmetal design we've all come to know. A-B being a small concern could not keep up with the production needs so Willys got the contract but once the war arrived Ford had to start producing them to keep up with demand. I have a Jeep loving friend I totally bug about the grille design being Ford. He never fails to get hot when I mention it so I keep mentioning it.
I've often wanted to knock on people's door at 3am and Announce "it's the mattress tag police".. time for inspection.. No clue.. but if it's in writing from the government.. you're in trouble..
"Kids, this-piece-of-paper's-got-47-words-37-sentences-58-words-we-wanna- know-details-of-the-crime-time-of-the-crime-and-any-other-kind-of-thing- you-gotta-say-pertaining-to-and-about-the-crime-I-want-to-know-arresting- officer's-name-and-any-other-kind-of-thing-you-gotta-say", and talked for forty-five minutes and nobody understood a word that he said, but we had fun filling out the forms and playing with the pencils on the bench there, and I filled out the massacre with the four part harmony, and wrote it down there, just like it was, and everything was fine and I put down the pencil, and I turned over the piece of paper, and there, there on the other side, in the middle of the other side, away from everything else on the other side, in parentheses, capital letters, quotated, read the following words: ("KID, HAVE YOU REHABILITATED YOURSELF?")