Documentation is scarce, but in early 1944, Willys seemed to have found time to start drawing up plans, and one or two prototypes dubbed CJ(-1), for "Civilian Jeep", were running by May of that year. This allowed Willys to consider designing a Jeep for the postwar civilian market. By 1944, the Allies were confident the war would be won, and wartime production looked to be winding down. In 1942, the US Department of Agriculture tested the MB. The similar model, the DJ "Dispatcher" was introduced in 1956 as a two-wheel drive version with open, fabric, or a closed steel body in both left- and right-hand drives for hotel, resort, police, and later United States Postal Service markets. Widely regarded as "America's workhorse", the CJs have been described as "probably the most successful utility vehicle ever made." American Motors VP Joseph Cappy said the end of "CJ production will signal an end of a very important era in Jeep history." The Jeep CJ-7 was replaced in 1987 by the similar-looking Jeep Wrangler. More than 1.5 million CJ Jeeps were built, having continued the same basic body style for 45 years since the Jeep first appeared. Also, with few exceptions, they had part-time four-wheel drive systems, with the choice of high and low gearing, and open bodies with removable hard or soft tops.Īfter remaining in production through a range of model numbers, and several corporate parents, the Jeep CJ line was officially ended in 1986. From then on, all CJ Jeeps consistently had a separate body and frame, rigid live axles with leaf springs both front and rear, a tapering nose design with flared fenders, and a fold-flat windshield, and could be driven without doors. In 1944, Willys-Overland, one of the two main manufacturers of the World War II military Jeep, built the first prototypes for a commercial version – the CJ, short for "civilian Jeep".
The 1945 Willys Jeep was the world's first mass-produced civilian four-wheel drive car. The Jeep CJ models are a series and a range of small, open-bodied off-road vehicles and compact pickup trucks, built and sold by several successive incarnations of the Jeep automobile marque from 1945 to 1986.
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