the prior existence of the term "jeep" dismisses this as an etymology in the strict sense, it may well have contributed to the marriage of the term with the World War II quarter-ton vehicle. The first version, based on the Ford "GP" model code, was already given in an article in the San Francisco Call-Bulletin in late 1941, and is to an extent plausible because the pre-standardized Ford GP was the first of the -ton jeeps to reach GIs by the hundreds, starting from early 1941. So it is possible "GP" could have evolved into "Geep" and then "jeep". The latter 'GP'-based explanation though this does appear in the TM9-803 Manual, and the car is designated a "GP" in the TM9-2800 Manual — these were published in late 1943 and early 1944, and their influence on the jeep's name is dubious. One reason being: the jeep was not the only of the Quartermaster Corps' "general purpose" vehicles – so if this was the source, people would have nicknamed others "geeps" or "jeeps" as well, as they did before. More influential perhaps, was the 1943 short propaganda/documentary film The Autobiography of a 'Jeep', by the U.S. Office of War Information, in which the jeep itself literally propagates this origin story of its nickname. Willys-Overland's positions and promotion Joe Frazer, president of Willys-Overland from 1939 until 1944, claimed to have coined the word jeep by slurring the initials G.P., possibly related to Willys-Overland's 1943 trademark and 1946 copyright claims to the Jeep name. However, the company handling Willys' public relations in 1944 wrote that the jeep name probably came from the fact that the vehicle made quite an impression on soldiers at the time, so much so that they informally named it after the go-anywhere Eugene the Jeep. In early 1941, when the test cars went by names like BRC / "Blitz-Buggy", Ford Pygmy, and others, Willys-Overland staged a press event in Washington, D.C., a publicity stunt and Senate photo opportunity demonstrating the car's off-road capability by driving it up and down the U.S. Capitol steps. Irving "Red" Hausmann, a test driver on the Willys development team who had accompanied the car for its testing at Camp Holabird, had heard soldiers there referring to it as a jeep. He was enlisted to go to the event and give a demonstration ride to a group of dignitaries, including Katherine Hillyer, a reporter for