THE Winchester 73 repeating rifle may have been credited as The Gun That Won the West, but it was a rather less dangerous piece of kit that can claim to have helped win the Second World War.

The Willys Jeep scooted around battlefields from the D-Day Beaches to Okinawa like a demented ant.

It was the all-purpose, go anywhere, carry most things little vehicle that not only starred for real, but in a hundred war movies as well.

Action heroes from John Wayne to Sylvester Stallone clambered aboard one, rammed their battle helmets on tight and sped off to face the foe to the sound of whistling bullets and stirring music.

The gritty, bloody realism of Saving Private Ryan shot a hole in the romanticism, but it also brought a fresh interest in the Willys Jeep.

Suddenly, Willys were cool.

That's why, if you turn off the Droitwich to Kidderminster road at Elmley Lovett, down what used to be a farm track but now leads to Rylands Business Park, you'll find a little bit of the good old US of A alive and well and living in the middle of the Worcestershire countryside.

Although it must be said that some of these bits' are more well than others.

Steve Bloomer restores and repairs Willys Jeeps and some of the raw material than arrives at his workshop on the equivalent of a motorised stretcher - ie a flatbed trailer - seems long gone.

Which in a way is no surprise, for production of the Willys Jeep stopped abruptly in 1946. It was seen as a war vehicle and little use in peacetime.

So if one has been hiding in a hedgerow or stuck at the back of a farmer's barn since then, it is entitled to look ancient.

"They come here from all over the world," said Steve. "Wherever the Americans fought in the Forties and early Fifties, you will find Jeeps.

"More than 650,000 of them were made between 1941 and 1946, so there were a lot of them out there."

The good news is that if you want to use one on the road, you don't have to pay tax, because as an historic vehicle it's exempt. The bad news is that its fuel consumption is terrible - around 20 mpg from its 2.2 litre, petrol side-valve engine with a three-speed gearbox.

"If you tear about, you can get that down to 8 mpg," Steve added. It's not the sort of thing to use every day to get the office. More the sunny Sunday afternoon job or if you want to have a bit of fun ."

The Willys Jeep would have been a familiar sight in Worcestershire during the Second World War, particularly in Kidderminster. The 52nd US Army Hospital stood just outside the town at Wolverley and in the south of the county there were several large airfields from which the American and Canadian airforces operated.

Steve, who is now 34, has lived near Kidderminster most of his life and grew up hearing tales of the GIs. He's also a mechanical engineer and the two strands have now come together in his restoration business.

"The genius of the Willys Jeep is that it was so beautifully simple," he said. "It was almost indestructible. There was not much to go wrong."

When the American government was looking for a new all-purpose runabout for its armed forces in 1940, three firms submitted designs.

Eventually Willys Overland from Ohio was chosen and the first Jeep rolled off the production line in November, 1941. Because of the volume needed, Ford also made them under licence.

There's always been some dispute about exactly where the name "Jeep" came from.

According to Steve, it was either after a popular cartoon character of the day, Eugene the Jeep, or an acronym for the phrase "Just enough essential parts".

The common assumption is that it's derived from GP, which stands for general purpose.

Whatever, it has carved its own special place in military folklore.

"They are not actually that difficult to restore," he added. "Provided you have the contacts and the time. You can get virtually all the spare parts you need, because new companies have sprung up to provide them, and you can even get original spares dating back to the Second World War in their original wrapping."

After the war, the American Army began selling off its surplus Jeeps to farmers and landowners and with the military contract severely depleted, Willys turned its attention to adapting models for the agricultural industry.

Eventually this spawned the whole 4x4 scene so predominant today.

If you want the real thing, a rusty old original will cost between £4,000-£5,000, while a completely restored Willys Jeep costs around £17,000. Possibly with a de-commissioned machine gun on the front.

Which ought to put the Willys up them on the Waitrose car park.