UPDATE:  Was available at $15,000.

(03/25/2012) This needs some work to get return to its original glory.  That driver’s side has been hacked a bit.

“1941 ford gp pre war prototype for willys jeep…It is in good condition and runs ( all though not at the moment) It has a 9n tractor engine in it now… The orignal engine block goes with it and appeares to be in good condition…”

Here’s a nice photo of a GP chained down, possibly for transit?

View the eBay auction here

I guess I should have posted this at the beginning of the Festival, but I was pleasantly distracted all weekend. So, here is a post about the three Bantam generations. As the oral testimony shared by Gerald affirms, there were three different models of vehicles built by Bantam.  Here is more history about the Bantam vehicles.

The Original Bantam: Below are images of the original Bantam Bantam Reconnaissance Car. Here are some images from Life Magazine from Camp Holabird.  Here is a video of Duncan’s well done original BRC Replica (which also includes a BRC-40).

The Bantam BRC-60: This is the 2nd generation BRC-60.  The easiest way to identify the differences between the BRC and the BRC-60 is to look at the fenders, note the Original BRC fenders are round, and the entry point, which is a smoother slope on the BRC-40 as opposed to the bump in the original BRC.

The Bantam BRC-40: This is the 3rd generation BRC-40.  The easiest way to identify the difference between the BRC-60 and the BRC-40 is the grille.  Note how flat the grille is compared to the rounded grille of the BRC-60. The windshield is dramatically different, as the BRC-40’s appears much stronger.  Of course, there are other differences, but those are a quick way to distinguish between the two. Here is a BRC-40 that was for sale.

I guess I shouldn’t forget the Bantam ‘Checker’: Learn more about this at Bill Spear’s website.

Finally, just to show there seems to be an exception to every rule, Gerald forwarded this image.  I believe the front of this is a Bantam BRC-60, but the door area resembles the original Bantam.  The windshield has a higher ‘bridge’ across the bottom; which doesn’t resemble either the BRC or the BRC-60 in the pics above.   I believe this was a Russian Lend/Lease vehicle, but perhaps someone else could be more specific about it.

Well, sort of. Rudolf spotted this MA looking jeep for sale, but it turns out the owner combined some MA body parts with a Mitsubishi built CJ-3B.  It sure turned out well. You can see some restored MAs at Gavin’s Site.

UPDATE: These images come from the War Wheels website. There’s a longer discussion no why changes were made to the gun placement.

Here’s what’s likely a 1941 image from warwheels.net of the Bantam BRC-40 T2 with the 37MM Gun on it mounted in the middle of the vehicle:

There were some problems with the T2, so the gun was moved to the back for version 1 of T2E1.

The army preferred this location, because a 2nd version of the T2E1 was developed that lacked a standard body (many more photos here):

Finally, there was also reportedly an anti-tank Willys MB version called the T21 with a75mm mounted in the rear, but I haven’t been able to verify it.