The Wartime History Behind Jeep's Signature Seven-Slot Grille

The Jeep brand is about as American as buffalo wings and apple pie, and its roots stretch back to World War II when the U.S. Army put out a call to automakers to build a go-anywhere light troop and gear carrier. American Bantam, Ford, and Willys-Overland submitted designs, and the Willys Quad prototype was delivered to the Army on Armistice Day in November of 1940. After some tweaks, the Quad went into military service as the Willys MA and MB.

The Army's field stalwart gave birth to the CJ (Civilian Jeep) series, which found an instant market among farmers and ranchers after the war. When Chrysler bought Jeep along with the rest of American Motors in 1987, it morphed the CJ7 into the Wrangler, which is now in its fourth generation. As for Jeep's now ubiquitous seven-slot grille design, it came about during Jeep's transition from military to civilian use.

The average driver may not know how many slots are in every modern Jeep's grille, but many Jeep enthusiasts are keenly aware of the brand's subtle changes over the years. The MB's original nine-slot setup actually came from Ford's competing design, and Ford's model designation "GP" may have also inspired the name 'Jeep.' The nine-slot design persisted through the war until Willys-Overland introduced the  CJ-2A in 1945. Many theories abound as to why Willys-Overland changed the grille design, but according to Jeep's current parent company Stellantis, the civilian model required larger headlights to be street legal. 

Willys removed the two outer slots to make room for larger headlights, and the signature seven-slot grille carried on to later CJ models and the Wrangler. From 1945 on, all CJs featured a seven-slot grille, including the very similar CJ5 and CJ7. The format even persisted through the short time that Jeep used rectangular headlights on the Wrangler. Various other models have sported between 8 and 13 grille slots, but all Jeeps since 1998 have had exactly seven slots in the grille. The 2024 Jeep Wrangler featured a new grille design with black textured vertical slots that number — you guessed it — seven.