27. Which army-vehicle was inspired by popeye?
At present, the word Jeep stands for an American car brand that specializes in SUVs, crossovers, and other off-road vehicles. But during WW2, and for many years later it was a generic name for any light-military 4×4 drive vehicle.
According to most researchers ‘Jeep’ is an abbreviation of G.P, which stands for ‘General Purpose’ (vehicle). This abbreviation was probably influenced by ‘Eugene the Jeep’ a then famous cartoon from the Popeye comic strip who could only say Jeep.
So, how did the military term “immigrated” to civilian vocabulary? – in 1941, Irving “Red” Hausmann – the Willys-Overland Motors test driver – was invited to demonstrate the new vehicle’s off-road capability by driving it up the steps of the United States Capitol. When asked by the Washington Daily News columnist, Katharine Hillyer, “What is it?”, Hausmann, that a few days before heard popeye-fans-soldiers calling it a Jeep, answered, “It’s a jeep!”