The Historic Vehicle Association today said the 1940 Ford Pilot Model GP-No. 1 Pygmy is the eighth vehicle to be recorded under the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for Heritage Documentation. Of the five pilot models produced by the three manufacturers only the two Ford pilot models are known to survive making the Ford Pilot Model GP-No. 1 America’s oldest known “jeep.”
In June 1940, the U.S. Army sought to develop an agile lightweight vehicle to help infantry and other troop movements. The principle initial parties involved were the U.S. Army; American Bantam Car Company (Butler, Pennsylvania); Willys-Overland Motor Co., Inc. (Toledo, Ohio); and later the Ford Motor Company (Detroit).
The first prototype “pilot model” was produced by American Bantam and delivered to Camp Holabird in Baltimore on Sep. 23, 1940. Willys-Overland and Ford were able to observe the American Bantam pilot prior to completing their pilot models. On Nov. 11, 1940 Willys-Overland delivered the first of two “Quad” prototype pilot models. On Nov. 23, 1940, the Ford Motor Company delivered two “Pygmy” prototype pilot models – the first with a Ford body (serial number GP-No. 1) and the second (serial number GP-No. 2) with a body produced by the Edwin G. Budd Manufacturing Co. (Philadelphia).
The 1940 Ford Pilot Model GP-No. 1 Pygmy is owned by the U.S. Veterans Memorial Museum in Huntsville, AL where it is on display. GP-No. 1 was the only Ford pilot model tested at Camp Holabird and it was eventually returned to Ford. In 1948, Henry Ford II, then President of the Ford Motor Company, donated GP-No. 1 to The Henry Ford Museum. In September 1982 GP-No. 1 was sold to Randall Withrow at a Henry Ford Museum auction.
“I remember I could not believe that the Ford Pygmy was being sold and I was the winning bidder,” said Withrow. “I later founded the U.S. Veterans Memorial Museum and donated the Ford Pygmy as an important centerpiece to the collection. At the museum today, we continue to carefully maintain GP-No. 1 in its unrestored condition.”
The Ford Pilot Model GP-No. 1 Pygmy design is arguably most notable as the first “jeep” prototype to have a flat slatted front grille with integrated headlights that went on to become a key design element of the standardized mass produced WWII “jeep” and subsequent commercial versions.
The documentation of the Ford will be part of the HVA’s National Historic Vehicle Register and the Historic American Engineering Record that is permanently archived in the Library of Congress. The documentation is part of an ongoing collaboration between the Historic Vehicle Association and the U.S. Department of the Interior, Heritage Documentation Programs to document historically significant automobiles, trucks and motorcycles. Principle funding for the documentation of the 1940 Ford Pilot Model GP-No. 1 Pygmy has been provided by Shell Lubricants and Hagerty.
