Jeep History: The Jeep was created by Ford for the US military in a variety of formats. Willys began build Jeeps for the public in 1941 and merged with Kaiser in 1935 to make the Kaiser-Jeep in 1963. In 1970 American Motors bought the company and then sold it to Chrysler in 1987. In 1998 Chrysler joined Daimler-Benz and today the Chrysler Group, LLC owns the name.