The Willys MB was an American army all-terrain vehicle of the World War II era. The presented exhibit was donated to the museum by Soviet and Russian statesman Nikolai Ivanovich Ryzhkov, member of the Federation Council of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation and Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Museum-Reserve “Prokhorovka Field”.
During the Great Patriotic War, from 1942, a huge number of Willys vehicles was supplied to the Red Army under the American Lend-Lease program. They immediately found use as command vehicles and tractors for 45-mm anti-tank guns. The vehicles were fitted with machine guns with a caliber of 12.7 or 7.62 mm. In total, about 52,000 cars were delivered to the USSR before the end of the war.
The first prototype of the jeep was released in September 1940 in response to the requirements of the US Army to design a light command reconnaissance vehicle. These requirements were so strict in terms of deadlines that only Willys-Overland Motors and American Bantam were able to participate in the competition.
Willys declared the specified technical requirements and deadlines unrealistic and asked for 75 days to implement the project. Willys had complete information about the competitor’s car and copied the features of the exterior of the Bantam prototype. A few years later, this was established in court, but by that time American Bantam had ceased to exist. Ford joined the competition later.
At the beginning of 1941, a commission, chaired by President Roosevelt, formed the final requirements and decided to give each of the three companies an order for a trial batch of 1,500 cars. The Willys MA entered production in June 1941.
When the United States fully engaged in the Second World War, the US military department was forced to give instructions to urgently launch mass production of new cars. Contrary to Ford’s hopes, on July 1, 1941, the upgraded Willys MB was adopted.
Willys-Overland Motors released the last Willys MA jeeps on November 18, 1941, having built 1,500 pieces in violation of deadlines. The company started mass production of the Willys MB model at a plant in Toledo, Ohio. In 1942, the Ford plant also started producing the Willys MB vehicles.
