It was a retro vehicle from the day the first example rolled off the assembly line, because even in 1946, the Willys station wagon seemed like something from before World War II — and with good reason.
War bears an iconic civilian model
The Willys wagon could trace its roots back to the beginning of August 1940, when American Bantam began work on its response to the U.S. Army’s interest in production of small four-wheel-drive vehicles. The Army had set a seemingly impossible 49-day deadline for a running prototype, and the Bantam Reconnaissance Car (BRC) was finished literally on time, as it was delivered on Sept. 21, 1940. American Bantam had several advantages over every other
