Quote:
Originally Posted by Sapphireho
My understanding is when the US started occupying Japan they didn't want to have to ship jeeps there, so they told Toyota to start making jeeps for our troups. That is why you have old Toyotas that look a lot like jeeps.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Tcoat
Nope. Urban legend at best. There were something like 300,000 Jeeps in the Pacific at the end of the war and transports were going back and forth to Japan by the hundreds. They didn't need to build any more Jeeps.
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The US government placed an order with Toyota in 1950 to build 100 Jeeps on the Willys design for the Korean War. Toyota used that as a jump start for development of the Toyota BJ Jeep that they prototyped in 1951 and started production of in 1953. The BJ ultimately developed into the Land Cruiser.
ETA: The US government, Willys and Kaiser were all whores when it came to Jeep production. The early Willys Jeep was licensed to manufacturers in many different countries. Willys designs are still built in India by Mahindra. There were also designs that originated with Willys built in Brazil, Argentina and Spain. Kia is now building a Jeep truck for the South Korean military that is licensed from the Kaiser M715. Even Chrysler got into the act, licensing Jeeps to Chinese manufacturers.