Karl Probst (20 October 1883 – 25 August 1963) was an American freelance

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who Invention, invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considerin ...

and automotive pioneer, credited with drafting the design drawings of the first prototype of the Bantam Reconnaissance Car, also known as the World War II "jeep" in 1940. He was born in Point Pleasant, West Virginia to Charles and Eva (Knight) Probst. He studied engineering at

Ohio State University The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best pub ...

and graduated in 1906. Probst was recruited by

American Bantam The American Bantam Car Company was an American automobile manufacturing company incorporated in the state of Pennsylvania. American Bantam is credited with the invention of the Original Jeep in 1940. The company's founders, Roy Evans and Willia ...

Car Company in 1940 to help it win a contract to provide the U.S. Army with a lightweight reconnaissance vehicle that could transport troops and equipment across rugged terrain. Bantam had provided the specifications to the Army, and Probst drafted the design for the Jeep in two days, commencing on 17 June 1940, Bantam's first hand-built prototype was complete and running by September 21, 1940, just meeting the 49-day deadline and was delivered to the Army Quartermaster Corps for testing at Camp Holabird, MD. He died in

Dayton, Ohio Dayton () is the List of cities in Ohio, sixth-largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Montgomery County, Ohio, Montgomery County. A small part of the city extends into Greene County, Ohio, Greene County. The 2020 United S ...

Legacy

The

Port Authority of Allegheny County Pittsburgh Regional Transit (PRT, formerly Port Authority of Allegheny County) is the second-largest public transit agency in Pennsylvania and the 20th-largest in the United States. The state-funded agency is based in Pittsburgh and is oversee ...

pays homage to Karl Probst by putting his name on one or more of the city buses. Around 1990, a crescent-shaped street in Caen (

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

) was named after Karl Probst, both extremities of which open on another street named after Commodore

John Hughes-Hallett Vice-Admiral John Hughes-Hallett CB DSO (1 December 1901 – 5 April 1972) was a British naval commander and politician. He was the Naval Commander during the Dieppe Raid of 1942. Early life and career Hughes-Hallett was born in December 1901, ...

, in a district close to the ''Mémorial pour la Paix'' museum, where a majority of streets commemorate personalities linked with the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

, the

Résistance The French Resistance (french: La Résistance) was a collection of organisations that fought the German occupation of France during World War II, Nazi occupation of France and the Collaborationism, collaborationist Vichy France, Vichy régim ...

, and the subsequent making of the

European Community The European Economic Community (EEC) was a regional organization created by the Treaty of Rome of 1957,Today the largely rewritten treaty continues in force as the ''Treaty on the functioning of the European Union'', as renamed by the Lis ...

.Caen map, La Poste, 1993.

References

WQED Pittsburgh: Pittsburghers of the Century: December 1999:

*In August 2011, the VOA Special English service of the Voice of America broadcast a report on the Bantam Jeep as part of its American Mosaic series. A transcript and MP3 of the program, intended for English learners, can be found a
The Jeep – One of the Most Famous Vehicles in the World – is Celebrated at its Birthplace

People from Point Pleasant, West Virginia 1963 deaths 1883 births People from Pittsburgh Engineers from West Virginia American automotive pioneers 20th-century American engineers Engineers from Pennsylvania Inventors from West Virginia {{US-inventor-stub