For this year’s Safari in John Ford Country, Jeep has unveiled half a dozen one-offs to celebrate the history, and the off-road potential, of their vehicles. The festival for the 4WD has been a staple of springtime in Moab since the late 1960’s, when the chamber of commerce launched it as a regional promotion; it has since become a mainstay for Jeep’s brand identity.
This year’s crop of Jeep-philes will be treated to six concept cars: four Wrangler-based specials, bookended by a then-and-now duo of SUV’s.
The Wrangler variations have been named Quicksand, Safari, Switchback and Luminator. The quicksand is the hotrod of the lot, features a high-strung V8 and headers. It’s made for soft ground, with 32-inch front and 37-inch rear tires.
The Safari gets a sexy see-through top, a two-tiered rack with a drone, and LED lights. The doors are made of translucent vinyl. The Safari’s panoramic views are ideal for sightseeing in Jurassic Park, and it features a shorter wheelbase for narrow trails.
Switchback gets no full doors at all—only halves and bars—and a whole compliment of performance parts. It looks and acts more safari than the Safari, with its four-inch lift, heavy-duty protection, 17” wheels, and winch. It borrowed the Safari’s roof, though.
The Luminator gets lumens…LED lumens. Spotlights, foglamps, turn signals and a windshield lightbar are all LED, and the mounted LED complex on the hood can be directed. Otherwise, it looks similar to the Switchback, but not quite as safari.
The two SUVs are a revised 1993 Grand Cherokee called Grand One—in keeping with a current niche fashion of the industry, a vanished icon raised from the dust and given a serious facelift—and a tuned Compass crossover, called Trailpass; collectively, a little Jeep SUV then-and-now narrative. Next year may see a revised Wagoneer or Grand Wagoneer, for a context of even more temporal breadth, as Jeep is currently in the process of revising those models, and putting them back into production.
The six new Jeep concepts—and one from last year—will be on display, and on the trail, April 8-16 in Moab, Utah.
