Jeep’s marketing folks will tell you all about the awards won by the brand. Top four-by-four of this, best sport utility vehicle of that.

But nice as they are, Jeep’s accolades go far deeper than a trophy from some magazine.

“The Jeep won World War II. It saved nations. It was part of the rescue of France, of the Philippines. The Jeep vehicle was that important. And in peace times, it’s saved a lot of companies as well,” said Patrick Foster, an automotive historian and author of Jeep: The History of America’s Greatest Vehicle. “I think it’s gotta be one of the two or three most important brands in the world.”

Here in Toledo, the hometown of Jeep, you’re unlikely to find anyone willing to dispute that.

READ MORE: Celebrating 75 years of Jeep | The wind in your hair, and a grille full of mud | Original Jeep designed by many minds | The brain behind the Jeep’s brawn | Jeep was indispensable to Allied victory | Jeeps Through The Years | Jeep By The Numbers

Detroit may be the Motor City, but Toledo is the Jeep City. Next weekend, the only public celebration of Jeep’s 75th anniversary is planned by United Auto Workers and community officials in downtown Toledo.

Though the city can’t lay sole claim to being the birthplace of Jeep — the original military vehicle was developed by Ford Motor Co., the American Bantam Car Co., and Toledo-based Willys-Overland in conjunction with the military — Toledo is undoubtedly the most important city in the brand’s development over the last 75 years.

It was in Toledo that Willys designed the engine that would power 645,000 wartime jeeps and would file to trademark the Jeep name. It was in Toledo that Willys-Overland built the Jeep station wagon, the first all-steel wagon ever built in America. It was Toledo that introduced the world to the Grand Wagoneer, the world’s first luxury SUV. And it’s in Toledo that Fiat Chrysler Automobiles will invest $700 million to build the next generation of the brand’s flagship Wrangler.

And all the while, as Toledoans built Jeeps, Jeep helped to build the city’s middle class.

“I’ll say it over and over again a million times. It made a good living for me and my family. Without Jeep and UAW. I wouldn’t have what I’ve got today,” said 82-year-old Ali Talb, who worked 34 years in the Jeep plant in Toledo.

At its wartime peak, the Willys-Overland plant employed some 16,000 people. In peacetime, employment generally has held between 4,000 and 7,000 people. Currently, there are about 5,100 full-time employees at the plant, and 700 more coming in the next couple years. And there are thousands more employed by firms that supply the plant.

“It’s always been very important,” said Ron Szymanski, a local Jeep historian who also spent 35 years working at the plant. “You can see by the way they campaigned to keep it when they were talking about building a plant anywhere else.”

Twice the city faced the prospect of losing Jeep but came out ahead.

In 1996, then-owner Chrysler Corp. acknowledged it was considering other cities for a new plant to build Cherokees and Wranglers. Ultimately, after a passionate hometown campaign to keep Jeep, the company committed to investing $1.2 billion here.

In 2014, Toledo again found itself grappling with the possibility of losing the Wrangler, the vehicle that is most closely tied to the original WWII Willys MB and symbolizes Jeep. With the exception of a five-year period starting in 1986, the Wrangler and its predecessor, the CJ series, have always been made in Toledo. And while there were several months of uncertainty, the company ultimately decided to keep the Wrangler in Toledo and build a Wrangler-based truck.

The $700-million investment for that next Wrangler was announced just last month. With that, Jeep’s parent companies will have invested a staggering $4.5 billion in Toledo to support Jeep production, and there could be more coming. The company said an announcement about the future of the south part of the Toledo Assembly Complex would be forthcoming.

Even as Jeep’s parent company has added production elsewhere — Jeeps sold in the United States are now also built in Illinois, Michigan, and Italy, while some foreign models are built in Brazil and China — Toledo has remained a crucial site. Last year, Jeep sold 1.2 million vehicles worldwide. The company’s Toledo Assembly Complex built 538,993, or 45 percent of them.

As Fiat Chrysler continues to build toward its goal of selling 2 million Jeeps globally by 2018, Toledo figures to remain an important part of the puzzle.

Who could have ever thought that a simple little olive drab green military truck would launch what became one of the world’s most popular brands, a nameplate known and revered across continents as much for its rugged abilities as the sense of freedom embedded in its genetic code.

Contact Tyrel Linkhorn at tlinkhorn@theblade.com or 419-724-6134.

First Published August 7, 2016, 4:00 a.m.