With Chrysler celebrating the 70th anniversary of Jeep this year, it's worth pointing out that, according to many Jeep historians, they're actually a year too late.

Chalk it up to corporate pride. After all, the Jeep brand as it exists today traces its origins to the wartime Willys MA and MB, both highly successful quarter-ton reconnaissance vehicles that evolved into the iconic CJ series of Jeeps after the war.

Yet the Willys Jeep origins go back even further, to the Willys Quad prototype, delivered for testing in November 1940, more than a month after Bantam delivered its Bantam Reconnaissance Car for testing. Of course, the contract for jeep production would ultimately go to Willys (and Ford), and history is written by the victors, which is why Chrysler today pegs the jeep's birth year as 1941 rather than 1940.

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