About 20-25 miles from me is Butler, Pennsylvania which was home to the American Austin Car Company. That company went bankrupt during the Great Depression, but reformed afterwards as American Bantam Cars.
Bantam Cars were tiny things which never sold very well in the USA although the Bantam Model 60 Roadster became the choice of Walt Disney to be Donald Duck's personal car:
They even LOOKED like toys!
However, their claim to fame came when the US Military sought a design for a reconnaissance car. Bantam was struggling and were the only company that could come-up with a design within the time frame mandated by the military. All the big car companies couldn't meet the deadline for a design.
On top of that, Bantam's design was exactly what the military wanted and needed, the Bantam "Jeep" was born:
Original prototype of the BRC (Bantam Reconnaissance Car) 40
So the famous WWII Jeep came into being in little old Butler, PA.
Only problem was that Bantam lacked the manufacturing capacity needed for WWII so the design was given to Ford and Willys-Overland to actually produce the Jeep while Bantam was relegated to only producing Jeep Trailers.
