In the May 25, 1944, edition of the Ogden Standard Examinier was a press release out of Toledo, Ohio.  Buried between articles on “GI Haircutting Leaves Much To Be Desired”, “Dog Quarantine To Be Strict”, and a map of Bombing Times (shown below because it’s a cool map), was the following announcement:

New Jeep Developed For Sand, Swamps

TOLEDO, O., May 25 (AP) — A sand and swamp jeep, which can carry eight men over soft beaches at 50 miles an hour, has been developed for coast guard shore patrol duty by Willys-Overland Motors, Inc., Ward M. Canaday, President, announced today.  The new vehicle is much the same as the standard model except that it is 12 inches longer, has a lower gear ratio, is equipped with jumbo-balloon tires, and has a rotary hoisting device which enables it to extricate itself or other vehicles from mud and sand, Canaday said.

Josh notes that the jeep in this article is the MLW.  He pointed us to the Milweb website.  Here’s a picture from that site.  Many more pics are there along with an article by Mark Askew, who has written a good book about rare jeeps called Rare WWW2 Jeeps.

And, just for fun, this pre-Dday Map: