They said there was only one Pygmy. Then they admitted that there were two. But I am sure there were at least three. The third one, I saw with my own two eyes. It was in Fairbanks, Alaska. I say “it” because what I am talking about is the Ford Pygmy, one of the initial pilot prototype vehicles built for testing by the US Army in 1940. Bantam, Ford, and Willys submitted their own versions for tests and evaluation. Ultimately the Willys variant was chosen. This became the famous “army jeep” and later evolved into the various civilian models and SUVs we know today.
Originally it was believed that only one Pygmy had been constructed. Much later, in 1998, another was found–derelict in a field in California. But about this time, I too, saw one. In Fairbanks.
I lived in Fairbanks, Alaska and even after moving for a job in Anchorage, spent a lot of time visiting. I have friends there, one of whom ran a B&B that was in a little old house and had a 1940’s theme to it. (in fact, that was the name: 1940’s Age Old B&B) They often kept an old car or two around…because, like me, they were into that sort of thing. I had actually purchased a couple of old cars from them over the years, a 1957 Volvo PV444 and a 1954 Chevrolet pickup truck. After I got the Volvo, the “yard ornament” display piece became a Jeep that they had found somewhere. I took a look at it and noted that something was not quite right.
Those who know Jeeps, and especially those who know Willys-Overland Jeeps, know how they are built….down to minute details. This machine was not a Willys. At first…on the outside…sure, it resembled a Jeep. But it just wasn’t right. The sheet metal work was crude and seemed as though someone cobbled it up at home. Very possible, really–especially up here. When I sat in the driver’s seat, my leg almost hit the shifters for the transfer case. Wait! That’s impossible, you say…..Sure it is. In a Jeep. Real Jeeps have the case situated to put the levers on the passenger side of the main gearshift and the drive shafts run fore and aft to differentials that are offset towards the passenger side. THIS machine, however, was backwards. The gearing branched off towards the left and the respective parts were therefore offset to the driver’s side. Flinging open the hood I looked at a flathead four that was clearly smaller than the usual WWII era Willys engine. It was also arranged differently. It appeared an awful lot like a tractor motor. Think Fordson tractor, a derivation of the model T and model A cars. This thing was unique and different, that’s for sure. I took some notes and photos and filed them away.
Sadly, these notes and photos were lost in a fire in 2001. So what I have been telling you, I cannot prove. But with the fervor of someone who saw a UFO, I am 100% certain of how this machine was put together. For many years I had assumed it was somebody’s cobbling up of pieces gathered from the local junkyard and made into a suitable hunting buggy to play around in the wilds of Alaska. Certainly a plausible conclusion. And a good way to rationalize what appeared to be irrational. That is, until I was doing some online research for something else and found this:
That is a photo of the Ford Pygmy. Their 1940 submission to the Army for the proposed “Truck, utility, 1/4 ton, 4×4” …or what we call a “Jeep.” The Bantam and Ford designs lost out in the evaluations –the Willys design was ultimately selected, and both Willys and Ford produced them under contract by the thousands….and the rest, as they say, is history.
That photo looks very much like the machine I inspected. And in other online photos of it, if you zoom in enough you see the front differential is on the driver’s side, not the passenger’s. This coincides with the mystery jeep. Almost certainly it was a Pygmy! But it can’t be, they only had one? …or was it two?
History is only what we know. Other bits of new information sometimes bubble to the surface and alter our understanding of that history. We all “knew” only one of those Pygmies was made, and it was in a museum. Then a guy found another one in California in 1998. But maybe two is not the answer either. Maybe a third really did exist in the cold dry air of Fairbanks, Alaska. Maybe it was deployed to the north for cold weather testing…and once “used up” it was forgotten. Until it ended up in my friend’s yard almost twenty years ago with us scratching our heads and wondering “what the hell is that?!!?”