American Bantam also pioneered the design for the first jeep, called the BRC (Bantam Reconnaissance Car) 40, and built 1,500 of these after discontinuing the manufacture of passenger vehicles. Some of the motors and chasses were imported from the UK Austin; the bodies were made at the American Austin factories in Detroit, Michigan and Butler, Pennsylvania. However, because the company did not have the production capacity to produce the vehicle on the scale needed by the United States Department of War, the contract was to be determined by a test trial. Eventually the U.S. Army chose a design by Willys-Overland and awarded orders to Willys and Ford, while Bantam went on to produce jeep trailers (T-3).
