Old thread revival... so I was out enjoying the day looking for mud in my '93 ZJ when I saw two other ZJs drive past and give the Jeep wave. I followed them down a dirt road and we stopped and chatted for a minute. I heard one of the guys look at my grille and say "Hey, he's got 8 slots, not 7." I got home and looked online and sure enough, some ZJs have 7 slots and some 8. I wonder if it has to do with the inline 6 or V8? Anyone know?

 

This is a very interesting historical question! I hope to read more shared knowledge on this!

 

don't quote me as we all know not everything you hear is true.... but... here's my 2 cents on what I heard about them from more than one source over the years....

The significance of the 7 slotted grill goes back to the fact of when Jeeps were still almost all military and also still went by the original name of GP (which is how the word "Jeep" came about)... but it was with the military that Jeeps were the first vehicle to be produced back then that made it onto all seven continents...so in honor of that, they started making the front grill with seven slots to represent that accomplishment.

Again, I've heard that a few times over the years... can't 100% prove it... but at least to me that does sound like a plausible and cool story if it did turn out to be true.

Jeeps rule

 

I found something interesting on wikipedia. The "GP" designation was for the Ford Military version and the grill design and classic shape was also Ford but ****** copied it fairly closely. Then ****** changed it from Ford's 9 slot design to the 7 slot design we know now. But why they chose 7 is still a good question.

"****** made its first 25,000 MB Jeeps with a welded flat iron "slat" radiator grille. It was Ford who first designed and implemented the now familiar and distinctive stamped, vertical-slot steel grille into its Jeep vehicles, which was lighter, used fewer resources, and was less costly to produce. Along with many other design features innovated by Ford, this was adopted by ****** and implemented into the standard World War II Jeep by April 1942.

In order to be able to get their grille design trademarked, ****** gave their post-war jeeps seven slots instead of the original Ford nine-slot design. Through a series of corporate takeovers and mergers, AM General Corporation ended up with the rights to use the seven-slot grille as well, which they in turn extended to Chrysler when it acquired American Motors Corporation, then manufacturer of Jeep, in 1987."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willys_MB

I had read this before so that was what interested me so much with stealthy's question about the difference he found in later models.

 

'93-'95 KJs have 8 slots, '96-'98 have 7.

Similar to XJs: 10 slots 1984-87, 8 slots 1988-1996, and 7 slots 1997-2001.

 

Cool. Thank you, I was super curious...

 

Thanks! Now with a simple grill swap my '93 becomes a '98.

 

Like I said... it was just something I'd heard... but couldn't say with 100% certainty. But if true would've been a cool story for our Jeep heritage.

And I thought the actual word "Jeep" had come from the phonetic annunciation of "GP" vehicle, short for General Purpose... at least that's the way my dad said it to me as he was in the military many moons ago, and that's how they would refer to them way back then.

 

You are right, that is what I have been told to. "GP" was bastardized into Jeep. But it is kind of interesting that the GP designation was actually ford. So "Jeeps" started off as Fords. lol

 

^^^ LMAO... well...just goes to show that there's a dirty little secret in EVERYONE'S closet.

 

You guys might be interested in reading up on the *****'s MB and Ford GPW. There is another suggestion as to the origin of the term "Jeep". I've heard both stories throughout my life, but the one presented here (Eugene the Jeep) does make some sense considering that the term "Jeep" was used for other vehicles before the creation of the MB and GPW vehicles.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willys_MB

EDIT: I see that has been linked above...

 

I did link to it but I missed the part you are talking about here.

Well i'll be darned... I stand corrected about the Ford thing then. lol

"One account of the origin of the term "jeep" begins when the prototypes were being proven at military bases. The term "jeep" was used by Army mechanics for any untried or untested vehicles.[8]

"Jeep" was also used for several types of heavier equipment. In the armor branch, "jeep" generally referred to a 1/2 or 3/4 ton truck, with the 1/4 ton called a "peep". The militarized Minneapolis-Moline tractor was known as a "jeep", named for the cartoon character. Finally, heavy equipment transporters -gooseneck lowbed trucks for oversize, overweight cargoes, were known as "jeeps" by 1940.

Although folk etymology claims that it was due to slurring of an unused acronym, "GP" for "General Purpose", a more likely part of the jeep name came from the fact that the vehicle made quite an impression on soldiers at the time, so much so 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. Eugene the Jeep was Popeye's "jungle pet" and was "small, able to move between dimensions and could solve seemingly impossible problems".

In early 1941, ******-Overland staged a press event in Washington, D.C., having the car demonstrate its prowess by driving up the Capitol steps. Irving "Red" Hausmann, a test driver on the ****** development team who had accompanied the car for its testing at Camp Holabird, had heard soldiers there referring to it as a jeep. He was enlisted to go to the event and give a demonstration ride to a group of dignitaries, including Katherine Hillyer, a reporter for the Washington Daily News. When asked by the reporter, Hausmann said "it's a Jeep". Hillyer's article appeared in the newspaper on February 20, 1941, with a photo showing a jeep going up the Capitol steps and a caption including the term "jeep". This is believed to be the most likely origin of the term being fixed in public awareness. Even though Hausmann did not create or invent the word "Jeep", he very well could be the one most responsible for its first news media usage".

Thank you for pointing that out!

 

Well regardless where origin of the name "Jeep" came from... have to admit that the history of our vehicles is pretty deep....not many other vehicles have been continuously produced anywhere close to as long as ours have.

 

Except maybe "FORD"... Lol

I'm back...

 

Or Chevy with the Vette since '53