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Just before and during World War II, around the world, prototypes and low-volume production examples began to appear of cars with sedan or station-wagon type bodies on rugged, off-road capable four-wheel drive chassis, like the 1936 Kurogane Type 95 (Japan), the 1938 developed Russian and Germany's 1941 VW type 87 "Kommandeurwagen" (an "off-road Beetle" for high-ranked Nazi officers). But perhaps one of the closest of the early SUV-like examples was the 1940 Humber Heavy Utility. One of the most prohibitive initial factors to the potential civilian market popularity of an SUV-like car lay in its costs, and availability of certain critical parts. Before the war, adding four-wheel drive to a car almost doubled its cost, Compared to a common, rear-wheel drive vehicle, any 4WD needed a number of essential extra components, like a transfer case, and a second differential and constant-velocity joints for the driven front axle — all expensive components, because of the precision involved in manufacturing gears and such. In America these were produced up to the war only by a few specialized firms with limited capacity, but due to the war's necessity, from spring 1942 Ford, Dodge and Chevrolet joined in fabricating these parts in mass quantity, boosting their production more than 100-fold.
1936