Jeep in Europe

Jeep in Europe

Jeep in Europe

The acceptance of the Jeep as civil work vehicle, had already begun before the decade of the fifties. When they could not use them, or when repair was not practical, thousands of these vehicles were sold and provided transportation to farms and small businesses across Europe. The Jeep was sometimes the only vehicle that could have a lack of new cars and vans.

Jeep in Europe

Designed to be repaired quickly in the field, were easy to handle and cheap to repair. Keep up was one of the reasons that made her turn to open the Volkswagen factory in Wolfsburg, Germany en1945. As a repair depot, run by the British Army, his job was keeping vehicles allied forces. In France, Hotchkiss, a manufacturer of highly respected quality cars, created a division dedicated to the repair of Jeep vehicles for sale to the public. He soon be overwhelmed by demand and start manufacturing under license the Universal Jeep, abandoning their own models of cars in 1954 to concentrate on the Jeep and trucks.

Jeep in Europe

Other European manufacturers simply copied the formula Jeep. In Britain, for example, the original prototype of Land Rover, was based on many key components of the Jeep, as axles and body frame even used the same wheelbase, 80 inches. Fiat produced its own "Jeep" with Campagnola series that looked very similar. Even the sports car manufacturer Alfa Romeo has created a vehicle that looks like the Jeep, the 1900 AR-52.

Jeep in Europe

Europe would have to wait until 1994 before we can have a genuine Jeep itself. The Austrian Steyr-Daimler-Puch  began assembling the first generation of Jeep Grand Cherokee factory in Graz in a joint venture with Chrysler. At that time, the 100 containers a day coming from the United States to Austria by sea and rail were the largest shipment made in Europe.