Is Jeep a general term for any car that looks like a jeep or wrangler not SUV?

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lifelessons

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I have a friend who insists that Jeep is a general term for that class of car. We drove by a geo tracker the other day and he laughed and said something about the crazy driver in the jeep. I asked what he was talking about and corrected him that it wasn't a jeep it was a tracker. And maybe I just don't want the tracker to be classified as a jeep because i drive a wrangler and 'its a jeep thing, you wouldn't understand'.
But I think a tracker would be a car or suv not a jeep. Jeep to me is a name of a car like Ford or Honda. Car or Suv is the type, like a Jeep Cherokee would be a Jeep SUV.
I know the term SUV is kinda new. And back a long time ago military Jeeps were a general term but that company Willys Overland became Jeep over the years. In my thinking that gives the company the right to that name and its not a general classification of a car.

Any input would be great. If its not a jeep, what is it? an SUV? and if SUV is a newer term; what would something like a tracker have been classified under before that?

I am just tired of hearing that I'm wrong when neither of us knows who is really correct.
My friend argues that anything like my wrangler with a tire on the back and a soft top is a jeep. Please help us end this discussion.
Thanks for all the input so far. I also have a Scout as someone mentioned in one of their answers but as many similar things that car has to my wrangler, I'd never call it a jeep. Maybe that is why I feel so strongly about not losing this one.

Still looking to know if anyone knows if Jeep was an old general term for anything other than the military cars way back before my time.
 
Jeep is it's own company, owned by Chrysler. A "Jeep" is a vehicle manufactured by Jeep. Your friend is an f-tard.
 
It is not an old general term. JEEP is a manufacturer, not a body style.
SUV is not a new term either. It has been around as long as the Tracker has been.

Jeep used letters to designate different bodies such as CJ-civilian Jeep M38A1 is a Miilitary version that was named CJ-5 when it was made available to civilians
 
Your friend is a G-eneral P-urpose idiot. If it has Jeep on it, then it's a Jeep. If it doesn't have Jeep on it, then it's not a Jeep.

Jeeps: Wrangler, Cherokee, Compass..
Not Jeeps: Expedition, Land Cruiser, Land Rover, Blazer, Tracker...
 
I side with you, but I know there are people who swear that vehicles with square headlights are not Jeeps, even it they are made by the Jeep company and say Jeep on them. The term Jeep, I understand started as a military terrm for GP vehicle (GP for General Purpose) But many companies made military vehicles that were General Purpose. Were the ones made by those other companies also Jeeps???
 
In many other countries and nations the globe over, the term "Jeep" is used as a general reference to any 4WD vehicle designed for offroad use to some extent.

The word "Jeep" came from an acronym used for one of 2 things: the vehicle's use called General Purpose which eventually was reduced to GP and pronounced JeeP and then the word itself, hence "Jeep". or G stands for Government contract and P was for 80" wheel base.

It was announced to the public as Jeep because that is what a lot of the military soliders were calling it on the base.

The other half of the word "Jeep" is derived from the Popeye cartoon strip. No one knows 100% which on is correct. It was rumored that Popeye's Eugene the Jeep character was named that because he was little and could do anything. But since Bantam did not produce the first prototype until 4 years after the introduction of the character it is more likely that it was the other way around.

The first three major prototype companies to produce a military capable vehicle (which had been coined "Jeep") was Bantam, Ford, and Willys.
Bantam was the chosen GP (Jeep) for WWII and did produce about 3000 Jeeps before stopping production. The government did not feel Bantam could produce as many vehicles as Willys or Ford could.Bantam was then taken over by Willys and Ford.
Bantam died out and it was just Willys and Ford that worked together to produce all Jeeps for the military in WWII.
 
Jeep is a registered trademark of Chrysler. It refers to their line of utility vehicles.

Mike

http://thejeepguru.com
 
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