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Copyright 2004 - Todd Paisley (paisley@erols.com)Last updated 21 June 2004
Jeep Tried Out On Farming Job
Brownsvile Herald - May 31, 1942
The Army's "jeep" - or quarter-ton reconnaissance car - may get a job on the farm after the war is over. In a test conducted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the jeep showed up favorably as a farm power unit. The test was the first of several by agricultural engineers to find post-war salvage uses for materials and machines. Jeeps, designed by the Army, are being made in large numbers, and it is probable they will be in surplus after the war.
Supplied by the War Department and a motor car manufacturer, two of these tough and nimble "battle buggies" were tried out by engineers of the Bureau of Agricultural Chemistry and Engineering who reported they did good work in plowing, harrowing, and other farm operations (row-crops excepted) at the Tillage Machinery Laboratory at Auburn, Ala.
In the opinion of R.B. Gray, head of the Farm Mechanical Equipment Research Division of the Bureau, the jeep could be highly useful as supplemental power for light plowing, other field work except cultivation of row crops, and for road use. He says that the car is too low and too narrow for the usual row-crop cultivation jobs. Also, he thinks the jeep would perform better farm work if it were changed to give it a slightly lower gear ratio and lower hitch for plowing.