“The strongest car brand in the world is Jeep,” I recall Bob Lutz saying at some kind of Chrysler young-leaders event back when I was an engineer at the company. He didn’t really need to say that, because it’s obvious; everyone who could possibly get their hands on the Jeep brand has tried, ever since Kaiser took over from Willys-Overland. Jeep has changed hands numerous times since, and has regularly raked in millions and millions of dollars for whoever owned it. On the customer side, people have loved the products since day 1: From the WWII Jeep to the CJs to the XJs to the Wranglers, Jeeps have created a car-cult unlike any other. And yet, despite the strength of the brand, its history is not properly being preserved, and that’s an absolute shame.
This past weekend, the original administrative building of American Bantam, who brought this world one of greatest achievements in the history of the auto industry when it developed the WWII Jeep in a shockingly short 49 days, burned to the ground after numerous members of the Butler community allegedly did their best to try to preserve the building, but to no avail.
The dilapidated historic building sat vacant for decades, and this weekend became the victim of an enormous blaze that will, according to Butler City Firefighters IAFF Local 114, ultimately lead to its demolition.
The Bantam Jeep Heritage Festival, an organization that puts on the annual Jeep event to honor American Bantam, released a statement on its Facebook page:
Friends of the Bantam Jeep Association, the nonprofit organization that oversees the annual Bantam Jeep Heritage Festival, is deeply saddened by the fire that occurred early this morning at the former Bantam building in Butler. This historic site is a powerful symbol of American ingenuity and Butler’s proud legacy as the birthplace of the Jeep.
[…]“The Bantam building is more than bricks and mortar; it represents the determination, creativity, and teamwork that helped shape a lasting piece of American history,” said Todd Wagner, President of Friends of the Bantam Jeep Association. “Though the loss is difficult for our community and Jeep enthusiasts everywhere, the legacy of Bantam will always live on through the people who continue to honor and celebrate it.”Friends of the Bantam Jeep Association remains steadfast in its mission to preserve and share Butler’s Jeep heritage through education, community engagement, and celebration.“Our thoughts are with everyone affected by this event,” the organization said. “We stand with the Butler community as we move forward together.”
After their initial run of 2,675 [Bantam Reconnaissance Cars], the Bantam factory never produced another vehicle. The factory turned instead to manufacturing military trailers, torpedo motors, and other items until ARMCO purchased the company in 1956. ARMCO tore down the Bantam factory, but as of early 2024 the boarded-up brick administration building still stands.
In recent years, what was left of the Ford Highland Park Plant has been used for storage by Ford Motor Company and Dearborn’s Greenfield Village. The non-profit Woodward Avenue Action Association (WA3) purchased buildings at the plant in 2013 in order to preserve the historic site. WA3 planned to transform the abandoned plant into what it described as an “Automobile Heritage Welcome Center,” with attractions such as a theater, test track, and the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America. WA3 also planned to have the Ford Highland Park Plant recognized as a “world heritage destination,” a distinction it would share with landmarks like the Great Barrier Reef and the Statue of Liberty. The renovations were projected to be completed by 2018. Attempts to renovate the buildings were abandoned, and in 2019, the WA3 put the Ford Highland Park Plant buildings that it owned up for sale. According to DBusiness Magazine, the buildings are being sold by Plante Moran REIA. No list price has been posted.
For years, Toledo has tried erecting a Toledo Jeep Museum, but it never actually sees the light of day. In 2017, I wrote “It’s A Tragedy That The World Doesn’t Have A Proper Jeep Museum,” only to — two years later — have the pleasure of writing “The Jeep Gods Are Answering Our Prayers With Plans To Finally Erect A Jeep Museum In Toledo.”
But that never materialized. Last year, Toledo news station WTOL11 wrote “‘We can’t do this on our own’: What happened to Toledo’s Jeep Museum?” From that article:
“I don’t think there’s anybody in this city who would not commit to going all in on a Jeep museum here,” said Lucas County Commissioner Pete Gerken.
They announced the project five years ago, hoping to have it built by 2022. But, it didn’t go as planned and Gerken said the problem is due to the ownership of the Jeep changing over the years.
“The struggle has always been getting the corporate sponsorship on the other side,” he said, adding that it’s the key component to building the museum. “We may have the city where the Jeep is built, but right now, Stellantis owns the brands, owns the models, owns all the historical cars, owns the concepts and they would have to be at the table with us.”
This issue isn’t specific to Jeep — numerous historic automotive buildings and documents and vehicles are lost each year, and that’s just how it goes. But Jeep is a larger-than-life brand, and to see its original buildings get torn down, its original documents trashed, and so many of its vehicles and other historic artifacts have no place to go is just sad.
Top graphic images: public domain; DepositPhotos.com
Alas buildings unless architecturally are not historically significant. I was going to forward you that story. Or did I. That is an hour away from me.perhap fans of the breed need to start taking pictures and scans and create a historical library. Cause just like cars it is product then used product then garbage then if anything survives historical.
It’s crazy how little corporate in general cares about history, considering how much time and money they spend on marketing themselves as innovators. I created the first few rough mockups of the Mercury Avator electric outboard in my driveway during covid; these rough bucks allowed me to conduct multiple ergonomic/usability studies which led to way more problem solving and a way better final design. I thought we should save the prototypes. Nope. Into the dumpster they go, because someone had a fit about clearing out the studio on a random afternoon.
Next quarter profits, bro. Next quarter. Nothing else matters. We don’t need long term thinking or to preserve and celebrate the creativity and talent of our designers and engineers, just more budgets for the executives! /s
I think there are plenty of people in just about any company that truly do care, I feel like these ideas unfortunately end up at the desk of someone who inevitably says, “Sounds nice kid, but who’s gonna pay for it?”
Willys – Overland – the smokestack says. you see it from I 75. 2—gm s factory one is gm’s repository of old docs and models. It s an outgrowth of the Sartchburg (sp?) Archives that resided at The General Motors Institute. 3–Jeep-Truck Engineering bldg was very cool. I went there many times. 4–Too bad the bums set the bldg on fire.
I’ll speculate that the Jeep Museum didn’t get built because the perfect was the enemy of the good.
A short 100 mile trip down to Auburn Indiana would reveal the Auburn Cord Duesenberg Museum which has done a beautiful job without having a palatial building.
I wouldn’t short change the ACD building, it is still a very attractive Art Deco structure (and, importantly, is the company’s original corporate headquarters and factory showroom, and has lots of the original historic fabric intact, from floor tile, to doors, to lighting fixtures)
Didn’t I see them sell a ton of shit to American Pickers?
I live in New England and this is a problem with old houses. Everyone loves them and wants people to save them, but very few people with the money actually want to buy them, restore them, and live with the compromises of old living systems/pay huge money to update which comes with its own issue of changing the historic value of the original structure. I’ve lived in old houses and I’m long over the narrow, steep stairways, shitty plaster walls, substandard electrical and plumbing, weird sized rooms or rooms that no longer suit purpose, uneven everything, massive energy inefficiency, potential toxic stuff from lead and asbestos to black mold, and higher cost of getting anything done for the sake of “character” and some nice woodwork (if it hasn’t been ripped out or, covered with layers of linoleum, wall paper, or paint by cretins who lived there previously). Thats just the practical, I’m not even factoring in the truly weird Halloween season-appropriate shit that might come with them. Now take a large industrial building that might have been using toxic chemicals and processes to build stuff without anything like modern safety measures and can’t really be used for modern business purpose or residences, and it’s just too much to deal with. I’m also interested in boats, and those, too, have high cost of maintenance alone that climbs exponentially as size increases, never mind restoration. Not everything can be saved and there’s just so much cost to saving some things. Archives need preservation or conversion to digital for what’s likely to be very limited interest. Though companies could probably sell that off for a profit to interested individuals instead of dumping, it’s more expedient to dump 75 year old drawings and notes than go through them all to figure out if there’s anything in there that shouldn’t be released to the public. That typed, I do find it really surprising that there’s no Jeep museum.
My cousin in New Orleans went through something similar with an old house he purchased. It wasn’t even that large of a house, and there was a lot of money spent on things and additional processes/sign-offs to deal with because of the historic nature of the home that otherwise wouldn’t have had to be spent on a run of the mill old home.
Oh, was it registered as historic? That’s even worse. My mother’s final house was registered, but burned down. Even rebuilding it—there was nothing left but the stone foundation—was a whole process that the historic people had to sign off on every step of, along with the usual rigamarole of permits and inspectors. They didn’t have to make it exactly the same (they couldn’t, anyway, as so much wouldn’t pass codes), but there were limitations to the footprint, layout, and style, which I found ridiculous as there’s nothing historic left to preserve (besides the stone foundation). I get that it was in a historic part of the historic town, so the town uppities wouldn’t want something incongruously modern (she didn’t want that, anyway) and if they just wiped the slate clean of historic registration after house destruction, that might encourage other people to burn them down in order to rebuild something more suitable to modern times, but it was still an annoying process that made everything take longer and cost more than it should have.
But government requires everything be brought up to code which adds tens of thousands to a modest home. The UK doesn’t do this but morons think they know best.
Despite all appearances architecture is probably one of the most volatile art forms and industrial/commercial probably the worst when it comes to ease of repurposing.
The reason a lot of buildings remain for decades is the high cost of demolition and dealing with site contamination.
Looking into the design work of Albert Kahn is really eye opening and highly recommended for another point of view of the industry. He really was “the father of modern industrial design” and so much more.
I’m somehow not surprised that Daimler was not all that keen on celebrating Jeep’s history. Especially the early history.
David, while you have the account, why not see if you or a team of volunteers could order all the necessary parts to rebuild the facility from eBay?
We had this problem at the municipality I work for. Thousands of pages of old engineering drawings that were stored poorly. When a boss wanted to toss them, I stepped in and hired a contractor to take them all and scan them. Those scan files are now safely inside our network storage and will be preserved in perpetuity.
No Jeep museum? You off-roaders need to create one. I nominate Tracy as head archivist.
If Wikipedia is to be trusted, the vestiges of American Bantam is now owned by a company called Cleveland-Cliffs. They probably don’t own the Butler site, though, but who knows?
Preserving and/or digitizing costs money, money that returns little to no profit. Businesses exist to make profits. 97% of historical preservation is done as a labor of love, not for profit. The Jeep brand has probably generated tens of millions of pages of documents and drawings over the course of its existence. Are they all worth preserving? At what cost, and who is going to pay that cost?
This is common across industries and fields. When I worked for the feds at a natural resource agency, in grad school, and again where I work now, the amount of IMO priceless maps, survey documents, etc that are yellowing away to nothing in file cabinets and then just unceremoniously tossed is STAGGERING.
A colleague saved a hand-drawn copy of a bathymetry map from the 1890s. These folks had literally measured the depth of this sub-estuary in a rowboat, with chains, compasses and transits over the course of a month to a level of accuracy comparable to what we do now. And then come back to the office and drew it all out.
It was just in the garbage.
I’ve often thought Greenfield village and the Ford museum are some Henry’s Ford’s most forward thinking ideas. He knew the progress mows over the past and people will want to look back at where we came from and maybe even get ideas from the past like he probably did. Jeep has never been stable enough to really have that.
Plus when the jeeps came back they were just a tool that had been used to fight wwii. But ultimately a small cheap capable vehicle that was useful in post war civilian life. If you have ever talked to anyone involved in WWII they just think it was a Tuesday they will say they just did what they had to and it was their time. That mindset doesn’t really work with historical preservation. Add in their experience in the depression and then cold war and all that meant and you can see it was probably the last thing on their mind. But if jeep’s owners are spending millions advertising their history maybe they should spend some to preserve their history.
I think the big rub for say the drawings being tossed is that in this modern era, you could take an entire office suite of file cabinets full of drawings, which does take up space and cost money to store, and after digitizing fit them on a single hard drive. Then they wouldn’t be lost forever and could actually be shared and enjoyed by many people.
I remember when microfiche was the answer to document storage, Ha.
I like the idea of sharing and support Archive.org for all they do in making things available.
It was eye-opening to me reading an article about disc rot regarding CDs and CD-ROMs years ago. CDs were supposed to be the perfect digital medium–nothing need ever physically contact the read surface. But it turns out the plastic simply breaks down, for some low quality discs even when stored properly. There is no free easy way to archive anything. A hard drive can go bad, plastic discs degrade just sitting on the shelf. Anything archived online is in no way permanent. Look at things like the Svalbard seed vault–to permanently archive anything requires a lot of resources, with ongoing expenditure. The amount of effort it takes to preserve memory and record of human activity in the face of the simple passage of time, even in relatively stable sociopolitical eras, is enough to give some sense of perspective and scale to our existence.
It was so disrespectful that they just tossed those original Jeep blueprints out in the dumpsters.
Is it coincidence that the Jeep building burns down while Autopian runs a story about recalls (to a recall) for Jeeps that might burn up?
From the headline, I actually thought this was going to be an article about quality control problems destroying the Jeep brand. Color me surprised that is was about a literal building fire.
DT’s point stands though.
Ford decades, Citroën had a policy of actively destroying all their old stuff. But then again, that was in concord with their iconoclastic stance.
A few years ago I walked through the old AMC headquarters before it was destroyed. That was a travesty itself. Sure, the old factory might have been out of date, but it was used until 2009 as Jeep Truck Engineering. The front office really should have been saved and incorporated into a new building.
https://imgur.com/gallery/pAHLpQs
When they were clearing out Chelsea Proving Grounds after COVID and demanding anyone that wasn’t there 3 days a week give up their desk, a few of the older guys laid out some of their AMC era stuff. I grabbed a few AMC binders out of the trash for my own personal use.
One person’s priceless is another person’s garbage. While I understand the sentiment, we as a society would go mad if we tried to save EVERYTHING.
I’m currently struggling with this on a personal level. I have a decade of drawings, clippings and schoolwork for my two kids. How much of that is just trash that needs to be returned to the earth, and how much should I keep as precious? I’m still struggling to sort that and for now, they hide in boxes in a closet. I’m not ready to archive that stuff just yet.
I’m inclined to agree. I live in the Toledo area and even though I am the farthest thing from a Jeep person, I do think that some kind of museum would be an asset both to the brand and the city as a whole.
But let’s be honest here: yes, Jeep has a cult following as a brand, but they’re mostly known for WW2. There’s only so many military Jeeps you can see and so many times you can hear the story before it all starts to just get a bit boring. And while it is a shame to see some of these old factories burning down and sitting abandoned, what can you really do with them? We’re talking hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of square footage that you need to renovate and then pay to heat, cool, power, etc., and who’s really clamoring to spend time there outside of a handful of enthusiasts?
I throw away nine tenths of that stuff – but I also treasure the single shelfful of my own grade school memories; I just looked at the list of scheduled school lunches from 1984. We got nasi goreng! Twice!
It’s a tough balance, but some of it you can just photograph.
Yeah, so I’m coming from a weird place; through a series of unfortunate events, there is almost no record my mf childhood, or things from it. So while most people have like class photos from most of their years in school, yearbooks, awards etc… I have none of that stuff. It doesn’t really affect me most of the time, but I also want my kids to have some sort of tangible tie to their past.
As a former kid, my first instinct is to go through things with them. You can all choose favorite pieces, and let the rest go. Alternatively, mothball it all until they’re adults and give it to them so they can do whatever they like with it.
My Mom saved quite a bit of the things I made as a kid, and I have it in storage currently. Thanks for the reminder that I should probably go through it myself.
My wife and I are struggling with that as well. We have a box with all his daycare art, and another box with a bunch of grade school stuff. We realize there is a very small group of people (us, his grandparents, maybe future him, maybe a future wife and kids) that would ever care about it. We are stuck on the opposite side of this problem right now as well, since my parents are cleaning out their basement and have piles of my old school stuff they want me to go through, and her mom is going to be making us clean out her basement soon and we will have to decide what old sentimental junk is worth keeping and which we can toss without feeling guilty.
My parents handed me artwork from my childhood as they were cleaning up space at their home.
My first reaction was to bin it: it’s decades old, and I’ve not put any more thought into it beyond when I made it in those ensuing years.
With regards to buildings, at what point do we cut and pull it down vs maintain it with it’s increased operational costs and less-than-optimal form factor?
An anecdote about old buildings. In Rome it is very hard to build ANYTHING, as every time they start digging they find history, which kicks off an entire archeological process that has to be followed before any further work can be done. Sometimes what is found is deemed so important, the original plan has to be scrapped and something else has to be built instead.
I’m not saying this is wrong, because preserving history is important, but not everything is significant, and we only have 300 years of history to preserve as a nation. Don’t get me started on what we’ve done to indigenous history and cultural artifacts int he name of progress.
Oh I forgot to mention, I have a friend (in a suburb of Rome) with an ancient Roman Column as a side table in his backyard, he can’t tell anyone about it because the government will come in and start digging up his whole yard looking for more.
Toledo getting quite the lift here being compared with Rome.
Arguably, however, despite Toledo’s latitude being similar as Rome, I would venture to claim that Toledo’s climate is less forgiving of less-than-modern construction/insulation/ventilation.
When they tore down the Massey Ferguson complex in Toronto to redevelop it, I thought it was sad to lose so much of a landmark, but too see the absolute banal shit they replaced it with, stings even more.
I went through a period of personal mourning for the city Detroit was 120 years ago when I discovered archival photos of old City Hall and other buildings they tore down in the name of modernity.
The past gives way to the future. Old buildings that once housed great things become the caskets of those ideas and passions. As sad as it is, this is simply the way of the world
I say this as someone who just cleaned out my uncle’s disgusting and dilapidated house after his passing and found paintings and drawings my aunt created that haven’t seen the light of day in more than 30 years. I’m taking these things and trying to give her a second life, to keep her from being forgotten, but I also know that time is undefeated in it’s erasure of precious things. It’s terrible that so much is lost and thrown away and forgotten, but forward progress forces so many of us to forget the past so we can keep moving, and it’s usually only when it’s too late that we realize its importance
This sucks. I hate when companies are so focused on the future that they throw out the past. Which makes me even more surprised that Jeep has such a prevalent TV ad playing right now that makes such a big thing out of their history.
Don’t call it a comeback…..