@brick_r said:
"Actually, from what I understand: the name "Jeep" for vehicles is derived from the contracted military term for 'General Purpose'; or "G.P.", which phonetically is 'jeep'. :D "
Yes...For a time even Ford built a "Jeep" (the GPW).

One of the key features of this set was the unique(?) steering mechanism incorporating the front axle and steering wheel all in one part.

I don't remember this set and I have it very rarely. I guess that Huwbot wanted to refer to the new Land Rover...

I remember getting this one as a gift and being very happy with it.

Someone’s been watching BrickTsar ;)

@560heliport
" @Muncher said:
"Is this a proper licensed Jeep? I didn't realize they had anything branded at this point "

1976: 455 Learjet
1977: 491 Formula 1 Racer
1978: 554 Fuel Pumper (with Exxon logo)"

The Exxon one is an early license but I'm pretty sure the F1 racer is just a word to describe the vehicle. Idk enough about what a Learjet is.

You know, there was a time once where lego could just make their own toys in the likeness of things that were clearly not full reproductions but were similar enough for kids?

At the time lego was far from the industry giant it was today. Licenses were usually co-promotions with other businesses (like Exxon or Shell or Maersk branded trucks or pumps) instead of full-on royalties for reproductions. Lego made a model depicting something and just tried to describe what it was.

And who knows, maybe the name wasn't even official. Remember 'My Dad?'

And remember, these were the days before the days where they used the red cross for medical vehicles. I'm believe that that's not allowed to be used willy nilly by Geneva convention, yet they put it on toys because that's what's on medical vehicles. And it's just a toy of a real thing. It was a different time, and I'm sure lego flew under the radar on things like this.

In the early 90s we got more in-house brands like lego's Octan logo (replacing the actual Shell license) and their own medical logo. My guess is that at that point they were either deterred legally or it became too risky. Or I'm misreading this and they did do a lot of such licenses like Shell and Exxon, but were weirdly covert about it.

Either way, today's era of licensing every single thing started with Star Wars and Winnie the Pooh in 1999, grew with Mickey Mouse, Bob the Builder, Harry Potter, Williams F1, Sony's Spider-Man, NBA, NHL, Ferrari, Batman etc in the earlier 2000s. Then there were the one-off smaller tie-in film licenses. And from 2014 onward we got more and more until almost everything is licensed, has a TV show or is literally just Creator or Classic. Now even Dots is partially licensed btw, and Ideas and Icons are more often licensed than not.
Right now I'm certain the Jeep license would be a must for a model like this.

@Philt said:
"One of the key features of this set was the unique(?) steering mechanism incorporating the front axle and steering wheel all in one part."

Pretty sure those parts appear in many sets of the era of this size. There's surprisingly many sets from the 70s with steering! They're actually pretty specialized and none of those parts survived long after the era due to the advent of the minifigure.

@560heliport said:
" @Muncher said:
"Is this a proper licensed Jeep? I didn't realize they had anything branded at this point "

1976: 455 Learjet
1977: 491 Formula 1 Racer
1978: 554 Fuel Pumper (with Exxon logo)
"

None of the Hobby Sets have trademarks either; the Renault, Cadillac, Rolls-Royce, Harley Davidson, Norton... I guess Lego and the rest of the world had a slightly more relaxed view on trademarks back in the day. When the Hobby sets theme resumed as Model Team all the vehicles were generic.

This set was great fun to play with back in the day, probably my first toy-car with working steering.

@Binnekamp said:
" @560heliport
" @Muncher said:
"Is this a proper licensed Jeep? I didn't realize they had anything branded at this point "

1976: 455 Learjet
1977: 491 Formula 1 Racer
1978: 554 Fuel Pumper (with Exxon logo)"

The Exxon one is an early license but I'm pretty sure the F1 racer is just a word to describe the vehicle. Idk enough about what a Learjet is.

You know, there was a time once where lego could just make their own toys in the likeness of things that were clearly not full reproductions but were similar enough for kids?

At the time lego was far from the industry giant it was today. Licenses were usually co-promotions with other businesses (like Exxon or Shell or Maersk branded trucks or pumps) instead of full-on royalties for reproductions. Lego made a model depicting something and just tried to describe what it was.

And who knows, maybe the name wasn't even official. Remember 'My Dad?'

And remember, these were the days before the days where they used the red cross for medical vehicles. I'm believe that that's not allowed to be used willy nilly by Geneva convention, yet they put it on toys because that's what's on medical vehicles. And it's just a toy of a real thing. It was a different time, and I'm sure lego flew under the radar on things like this.

In the early 90s we got more in-house brands like lego's Octan logo (replacing the actual Shell license) and their own medical logo. My guess is that at that point they were either deterred legally or it became too risky. Or I'm misreading this and they did do a lot of such licenses like Shell and Exxon, but were weirdly covert about it.

Either way, today's era of licensing every single thing started with Star Wars and Winnie the Pooh in 1999, grew with Mickey Mouse, Bob the Builder, Harry Potter, Williams F1, Sony's Spider-Man, NBA, NHL, Ferrari, Batman etc in the earlier 2000s. Then there were the one-off smaller tie-in film licenses. And from 2014 onward we got more and more until almost everything is licensed, has a TV show or is literally just Creator or Classic. Now even Dots is partially licensed btw, and Ideas and Icons are more often licensed than not.
Right now I'm certain the Jeep license would be a must for a model like this.

@Philt said:
"One of the key features of this set was the unique(?) steering mechanism incorporating the front axle and steering wheel all in one part."

Pretty sure those parts appear in many sets of the era of this size. There's surprisingly many sets from the 70s with steering! They're actually pretty specialized and none of those parts survived long after the era due to the advent of the minifigure."

No, the steering parts are unique to this set. What you're thinking about is the 2x4 brick with a long pin that goes through the roof

@NotProfessorWhymzi said:
"is this cubism?"
No, just LEGO!

I love the LEGO logo on the front. Printed? Or a dreaded, ageing, sticker.

@Formendacil said:
"I love the LEGO logo on the front. Printed? Or a dreaded, ageing, sticker."

It's a print. Some were even embossed onto the brick.

@Duq said:
"None of the Hobby Sets have trademarks either; the Renault, Cadillac, Rolls-Royce, Harley Davidson, Norton... I guess Lego and the rest of the world had a slightly more relaxed view on trademarks back in the day. When the Hobby sets theme resumed as Model Team all the vehicles were generic."

I think so too. I mean, I also remember having catalogs from Revell or Bburago in the '80s, in which I noticed a mention of of the trademark just with models of Rolls-Royce and Ferrari, but none of the other brands. And same on the packaging. I think many brands just didn't care or even looked at it as just a way of free exposure. In the '90s Mazda even paid Herpa to make a few models of their cars.

With all of the licenses nowadays, I often wonder which party is actually profiting the most, and as a result, who should be paying who. I know it doesn't usually work that way, but with some of the licenses I can only hope Lego isn't paying too much.

As for this set, I can't help but feel this looks older than it actually is. They have done better cars in the '70s.

@DefaultOption:
The Jeep company may have been part of AMC then, and part of whatever Chrysler is today, but it is still a distinct company in its own right. As such, that company owns the Jeep trademark. Sell that company off, and the trademark goes with it.

The difference between the R and the TM is that anyone can claim a TM, but only after it has been fully researched and approved are you allowed to use an R symbol. Technically, every company needs to provably defend their trademark, or it can be revoked (as happened to Bayer with Aspirin, or Xerox with Xerox), and trademarked names should be used as adjectives rather than nouns. A Brickset member who is an actual lawyer explained that car companies don't do this because nobody owns enough market share for there to be a risk of public confusion (like if you go to the southeast US and order a "coke", only to be asked what brand you want).

There used to be a belief that you needed corporate permission to display a branded item in film or TV, but the truth is you only need that if you want to sign a deal for paid product placement (Mars wouldn't sign one for use of M&Ms in ET, so the deal was instead signed for Reese's Pieces...but the novelization still uses M&Ms).

What has really changed in recent years is that, rather than just defending your trademark, companies have realized their branding is a valuable commodity, and they can get paid to let others use it. This also allows them to more easily retain control over how their branding is used, as a company that's set up to sign licensing deals is also set up to shut them down when things get out of hand, or make sure they never happen in the first place (when the Hello, Kitty! creator was asked if there was anything he would not license the IP to, without pausing a beat, he said, "Guns").

@TheOtherMike said:
"Even if they didn't realize "Jeep" was a trademark, surely they realized "CJ-5" was one?

@ForestMenOfEndor : Better complement for 42122."

In Lego catalogues this set is listed as "Jeep with steering". There is no mention of model so we must assume that someone appended the CJ-5 moniker in error.

@PurpleDave said:
" @PDelahanty said:
" @Muncher said:
"Is this a proper licensed Jeep? I didn't realize they had anything branded at this point "
My guess would be that they didn't realize Jeep is a licensed trademark. The instructions do not include a "TM" trademark or an R-in-a-circle registered trademark symbol after the word "Jeep"."

But they _do_ include the word "Jeep" in the instructions? I know the Jeep name gets a bit messy. It was a character from the Popeye IP before it was a vehicle, and the original military vehicle picked up the nickname from the troops who used them. However, there was a trademark application, and it was awarded long before this set was released."

@DefaultOption said:
" @PDelahanty said:
" @Muncher said:
"Is this a proper licensed Jeep? I didn't realize they had anything branded at this point "
My guess would be that they didn't realize Jeep is a licensed trademark. The instructions do not include a "TM" trademark or an R-in-a-circle registered trademark symbol after the word "Jeep"."

There's a footnote at the bottom of the last page of the instructions:

"JEEP is reg. in the U.S. Pat. and TM office made under license with Jeep Corporation, Det., Mi."

( https://media.brickinstructions.com/00000/0711/005.jpg )

Which is a little weird, considering that in 1977, Jeep was a division of American Motors, but it gets the point across.

The reason there aren't ®s and TMs all over the place like you would have today is because the legal concept of 'vigorously defending' trademarks is a relatively recent development. At the time, just having that one note at the bottom was seen as sufficient."

Hmm, interesting. In that case, my next question is, “so is ‘Jeep’ the actual, official name of this set, then, or just what Brickset or some other LEGO fansite chose for it?” I’d actually been wondering about how some of the set names for the database here are chosen recently, specifically because of another “Jeep”. The recent Indiana Jones discussion here had me looking again at something I’d noticed previously, the listing for the LEGO Indiana Jones Brickmaster polybag 20004, shown here as being named “Jeep”, but that name isn’t used on the actual set; nothing is. As far as I’m aware, based on my recollection of an old article posted on StarWars.com in early 2008 (which furnished my initial notice of the set, and gave me the extra nudge I needed to finally sign up for Brickmaster), the set is officially named Indy’s Jungle Cruiser, IIRC.

Neither that set nor this one appears to have an official name on the package. Are they both just called “Jeep” here because Huw or some other Bricksetter noted that’s what they looked like, and needed to call them something, or what?

Addendum: looking at it again just now, I also see someone tagged 20004 with “Paramount”. Huh? Just because they distributed the first movies? Why not “Lucasfilm”?

@Blondie_Wan:
As far as I understand, _all_ sets get an official name (though they sometimes recycle names, so there's no guarantee it's unique). What that name is might be communicated directly on the box, but polybags and such have a long tradition of being released without any external indication of what that name might be. In the past, names were probably made up by the fan community, or were indicated to be just a description. These days, I believe they are actively sharing this information with the fan community (certainly I would expect Brickset's system to collect part data to include set names as well).

Anyways, the sheer number of sites that come up if you search for "20004 Jungle Cruiser" makes me suspect that was the official name, but Brickset didn't have a deal worked out to collect data directly from the LEGO servers at that time.

@legopete: Huh, interesting.

@Blondie_Wan said:
" @PurpleDave said:
" @PDelahanty said:
" @Muncher said:
"Is this a proper licensed Jeep? I didn't realize they had anything branded at this point "
My guess would be that they didn't realize Jeep is a licensed trademark. The instructions do not include a "TM" trademark or an R-in-a-circle registered trademark symbol after the word "Jeep"."

But they _do_ include the word "Jeep" in the instructions? I know the Jeep name gets a bit messy. It was a character from the Popeye IP before it was a vehicle, and the original military vehicle picked up the nickname from the troops who used them. However, there was a trademark application, and it was awarded long before this set was released."

@DefaultOption said:
" @PDelahanty said:
" @Muncher said:
"Is this a proper licensed Jeep? I didn't realize they had anything branded at this point "
My guess would be that they didn't realize Jeep is a licensed trademark. The instructions do not include a "TM" trademark or an R-in-a-circle registered trademark symbol after the word "Jeep"."

There's a footnote at the bottom of the last page of the instructions:

"JEEP is reg. in the U.S. Pat. and TM office made under license with Jeep Corporation, Det., Mi."

( https://media.brickinstructions.com/00000/0711/005.jpg )

Which is a little weird, considering that in 1977, Jeep was a division of American Motors, but it gets the point across.

The reason there aren't ®s and TMs all over the place like you would have today is because the legal concept of 'vigorously defending' trademarks is a relatively recent development. At the time, just having that one note at the bottom was seen as sufficient."

Hmm, interesting. In that case, my next question is, “so is ‘Jeep’ the actual, official name of this set, then, or just what Brickset or some other LEGO fansite chose for it?”"

Look at the instructions. https://lego.brickinstructions.com/en/lego_instructions/set/711/Jeep_CJ-5
They literally printed "Jeep CJ-5" on the cover.

I didn't know steering brick base part 827 existed until today. I was wondering if the steering wheel turned the front wheels and then saw a literal hand of child in 378-1 .

@PDelahanty, thanks for the link! That answers that, and also gives me another LEGO site to check out, of which I was previously unaware.