Sometime in the early 1960s, a farmer somewhere in the Midwest placed an order for a plow. It came from Green Manufacturing in Bowling Green, Ohio — the same basic design that had been sold under the Newgren name a decade earlier, refined through years of hard field use. The farmer probably didn’t know Robert Green’s name. He certainly didn’t know that the man who built his plow had once sat in meetings at Willys trying to convince executives that the Jeep could replace the tractor. He just knew the plow worked.

The world had moved on. But the work hadn’t stopped — it had simply relocated, quietly, to a small operation in northwest Ohio where Green kept building the implements the Jeep needed, for the farmers who still wanted them. Nobody marked the transition. Nobody wrote a press release. The Farm Jeep era was ending the way most eras end— not all at once, but piece by piece, while everyone was looking somewhere else.

The Death of the Universal Jeep

The Farm Jeep era effectively concluded during the 1970 CJ-5 production run. American Motors Corporation (AMC) relocated the fuel tank from its historic position beneath the driver’s seat — where it had remained since 1941 — to between the rear frame rails. That rear space had been the home of the Jeep’s PTO and two of its hydraulic systems. While practical from a safety standpoint, this change symbolized something far greater: the Jeep was no longer being engineered as a modular tractor substitute, but as a passenger-oriented vehicle. Ironically, this monumental shift in identity appears to have passed through AMC with little recognition of its historical significance.

Post-Green Marketing and the Stratton Solution

Following Robert Green’s departure in 1955, Willys’ agricultural ambitions faded. Advertising moved away from plowing and harvesting, focusing instead on mining and industrial applications. Around 1960, the Stratton Lift emerged as a refined solution, addressing many of the mechanical shortcomings of the earlier Monroe system. Ironically, it achieved the plowing performance and reclaimed the rear bed that Green had long pursued— yet Willys management failed to capitalize on it, and it arrived too late to reverse the brand’s direction away from agriculture.

Even after his departure, Robert Green stayed connected to Willys. His company, Green Manufacturing, would become the supplier of plows and implements. They would be the same exact plows sold by Newgren (and Green) all those years ago.

The decade that followed Green’s departure saw no or very few Farm Jeep ads.

The Bridge to the “Fun Jeep”

Every Jeep fan will tell you AMC (American Motors Corporation) ruined it. They’re not wrong — but the ruination took a while, and it started before AMC ever got its hands on it.

By 1970, Kaiser-Jeep’s parent company was in trouble. Steel and aluminum losses had been mounting for years, and the Jeep brand — the one part of the Kaiser empire that was actually making money — became the thing they sold to stay afloat. AMC’s Chairman and CEO, Roy Chapin Jr., saw a rugged lineup with no direct competition and a customer base poised to explode. He was right about that.

What he didn’t see — what AMC never seems to have seen — was that the vehicle they’d just purchased had spent twenty-five years as a farm utility machine. That history didn’t transfer with the paperwork. AMC got the Jeep. They didn’t get the Farm Jeep. By 1970, nobody at the company appears to have known there was a difference.

And they thought Jeeps were for fun.

When my son Evan and I were searching for Newgren implements at farm equipment dealers in the early 2000s, we heard the same story. It basically went something along the lines that the dealer had never heard of Newgren. They occasionally got a 2-bottom plow, but they were quickly purchased by “hobby farmers.”

While small family farms were mostly gone, the number of people with small acreages and those wanting to live a rural lifestyle increased during the last third of the 20th century. By 1970, US tractor manufacturers had abandoned the small utility tractor market. This retreat created a vacuum that was quickly filled by the Compact Utility Tractor(CUT), starting in the early 1970s.  As the CJ-5 became increasingly “civilized” for the suburban commuter, brands like Kubota and Yanmar arrived with small-displacement diesel tractors that claimed the Jeep’s plowing and tilling duties. John Deere entered the compact utility tractor market around 1978–1979, with the Yanmar-built 650/750/850/950 series, marking their formal entry into the modern CUT segment. These machines lacked the Jeep’s road speed, but they offered a small tractor that met the needs of the new “hobby farmers.”

The Farm Jeep’s ability to traverse a muddy woodlot with a passenger and a toolbox was eventually claimed by the Utility Task (or Terrain) Vehicle (UTV), which is also referred to as a Side-by-Side. By the 1980s, the Jeep had grown too heavy, wide, and expensive for the casual chores of a working farm. The 1988 debut of the Kawasaki Mule effectively resurrected the ghost of the original flat-fender: a simple, bench-seated workhorse with a small footprint and high maneuverability. By the early 1990s, Deere saw that even compact tractors were more machine than many users required for everyday hauling and property maintenance. The 1992 introduction of the Gator—evolved from the late-1980s AMT utility vehicles—represented a different philosophy. Instead of trying to deliver multi-purpose tractor capability, the Gator focused on doing a narrower set of tasks exceptionally well: carrying tools, hauling materials, and navigating rough terrain with ease.

The Farm Jeep didn’t so much disappear as it reappeared in separate vehicles. Its muscles were inherited by the CUT, its nimbleness by the UTV, and its nameplate by the SUV (Sports Utility Vehicle)—leaving the era of the “do-it-all” vehicle as a unique, thirty-year window in history that we may never see again.

I often describe the Farm Jeep at shows by saying if a compact tractor and a side-by-side had a baby, this is what you would get. And people get that image.

Who was minding the Farm Jeep when Robert Green left? Did Kaiser eliminate the Farm Sales unit? This is the one area where more research might yield answers. Willys did, over the years, publish dealer-related papers announcing major changes, including who dealers should contact for parts or accessories such as plows. We hope to find a stash of articles from 1955 to 1970 someday.

Did Kaiser ever understand the Farm Jeep’s specific value? Or was it just another model in the “utility line?” If I were to speculate, I would say that, from the Henry Kaiser mindset, the answer was that it was just another model to be sold. More research into dealer newspaper ads from the period may provide some clues.

What if the gas tank hadn’t been moved? Could the Farm Jeep have hung on for another decade until the CUT market emerged? Most likely, with enough sales to stay profitable, just as it had done in the 1950s and 1960s. Some farmers, not wanting to give up the Farm Jeep, removed the CJ-5s between the frame tank and moved them back under the seat.

But what about safety? Wasn’t the change a Federal requirement? The tank relocation in the 1970–71 CJ-5 was a design response to new federal safety standards, not a direct legal mandate. Engineers weren’t told what to do—but the new rules made the old design increasingly untenable. A better question is, could the Jeep engineers have found a way to share the space under the bed with both a hydraulic lift and a PTO?

Ironically, at his company in 1965, Robert Green had developed a tractor-mounted post-hole digger powered entirely by hydraulics. A redesign of the Farm Jeep’s PTO was feasible. And the engineer who could have shown them how to make it work was still around.

Where Are They Now?

The key players in the Farm Jeep story scattered over the years that followed. Ford exited the tractor business in the 1990s but remains a dominant global automotive manufacturer. Charles Sorensen‘s tenure at Willys was brief but decisive — his vision helped define the civilian Jeep, and others and I have credited him with saving the Jeep brand. Without Henry Ford effectively firing Sorensen, I don’t believe there would have been a Farm Jeep story for me to write.

Ward Canaday was a fixture at Willys-Overland for 37 years, only stepping away when he helped organize the sale of the company he loved to Henry J. Kaiser. The other Willys giant, Delmar “Barney” Roos, had a long and influential career, spanning roughly 20 years in various capacities. The father of the “Go-Devil” engine, his relationship with the company lasted until his retirement in the late 1950s

And Willys — the company that started it all — passed through multiple owners: Kaiser, AMC, Chrysler, Daimler, Fiat, and ultimately Stellantis. The 2014 Willys Wheeler Edition Jeep debuted at the 2013 Los Angeles Auto Show and was designed as a tribute to early civilian Jeeps. “Wheeler,” not “Farm” Jeep.

Monroe and the McIntyre family recovered from the Farm Jeep fiasco to become an international leader in the design and manufacturing of automotive suspension components. The McIntyre family led the company until it was acquired by Tenneco, Inc. in 1977. Beyond standard passenger cars, Monroe began producing ride control solutions for everything from golf carts to high-speed railroad cars. It is unfortunate that Monroe, with engineers who knew how to control spring-based suspensions, chose to focus on the Farm Jeep hydraulic lift rather than its “tractor/spring problem.”

Jabez Love returned to his tractor business; his contributions to early hydraulic lift design remain an important part of the Farm Jeep story. Love is best remembered for his contributions to the development of specialty tractors. His mostly unknown story is detailed in the extensive research we have gathered.

Robert Green, the tireless advocate of the Farm Jeep concept, saw his 1955 departure mark the collapse of Jeep’s serious agricultural ambitions. Green went on to grow his own businesses and create several new hydraulically powered devices. Even after leaving Willys, he remained a supplier of plows and other implements that had been first introduced when he was with Newgren. The company he started in 1945, Green Manufacturing, is still in business today. It, too, has been transformed in a way that leaves it with no memory of its Farm Jeep roots.

Why the Farm Jeep Matters Today

The story of the Farm Jeep stands as a cautionary tale of missed opportunity. When AMC pivoted away from the Farm Utility Vehicle toward the emerging Sport Utility Vehicle, it abandoned a market segment that today dominates rural and hobby-farm life. Had Jeep maintained its position in the utility space, it might not only be an SUV leader today — it could also command the multi-billion-dollar UTV and compact tractor markets that it once pioneered.

The “Universal” in CJ once meant a vehicle limited only by its owner’s imagination. That story — from muddy fields to wartime glory to the barnyard and back — is the story this book has tried to tell. The Farm Jeep was real and remarkable, and it deserves to be remembered.

⛏ Dig Deeper: Sources & Further Reading →