I just got an email from the President of the American Bantam Car Club asking me about Preston Tucker and Harry Miller’s working relationship. It seems that the club has stumbled across documents showing that Harry Miller was working for Bantam in 1937 designing a military 4X4 vehicle, which is 3 years earlier than they thought Bantam had been working on the car that would later become the Jeep. Harry Miller was Tucker’s mentor and the two of them had worked together at Indy years before this.
In the days leading up to WW II, Tucker was building what he called his “combat car” which was a high speed Jeep like vehicle with a .50 cal. machine gun munted on it. The military didn’t buy it, but they did buy the gun turrent design. I always found it interesting that Tucker’s combat car looked almost identical to the military Jeep, and never could figure out what was responsible for the resemblance. Now, it seems, we have the answer. Miller went to work for Tucker after he left Bantam, and must have mentioned the work he’d done at Bantam to Tucker, who then went to work on his combat car.
So, apparently, if you buy a Jeep, you’re buying a little bit of Preston Tucker’s car, as well.