Jeep’s preparing to go back to the future – and the past – for the 58th Easter Jeep Safari in Moab, Utah, later this month. A couple of teasers on Instagram and Facebook hint at what’s headed to the red rocks. On Insta, senior manager Chris Piscitelli mentioned themes of paying homage to the past with “the scene of what the 1950s looked like through our eyes,” celebrating current and future powertrains, and the rowdy, racy nature of Wranglers of yore. Thanks to him, we know there’s going to be at least a couple of Wrangler builds, a Gladiator build, and “even one of our bigger SUVs,” which we’re going to guess is a Grand Cherokee, but a modded Grand Wagoneer could be the perfect rock crawling school bus.
And get ready for big color. Piscitelli mentioned it, Stellantis teaser images foreshadow it, and a few pics on Facebook show it off. The first tease could lean into the “mission-capable” description in the automaker’s press release, done up in a military green we don’t recognize from Jeep’s color palette and showing off an embossed “WILLYS” along the side of the hood. The artwork image superimposes a 1945 advert for car shoppers to consider a Jeep for the home now that the war was over, touting “A revolutionary vehicle for a thousand jobs” and suggesting a buyer could “Use it as a truck, use it as a tractor, use it as a runabout, use it as a mobile power unit.” Since the vehicle in the photo is a Wrangler 4xe – based on the plug-in panel aft of the hood – we’re betting a part of this build is using the on-board battery to power various accessories.
The second artwork image is of what we suspect is a Wrangler 392 in Firecracker Red with a white stripe running vertically up the fenders and across the cowl, plus some seriously stout, arch-filling rubber.
From Facebook, we see what could be a Gladiator or maybe a shortened, two-door Wrangler, on a lift. A third bold take with a bright orange paint job, this one’s your desert racer. It’s got a skull and pistons motif on the fenders, spotlights where the mirrors would normally be, a roll bar behind the cab, the word “EVO” on the skid plate, and a chunky set of shocks with more travel than a frequent flier.
We have a feeling Jeep’s talk of future powertrains could be reserved for the bigger SUV. The festivities aren’t far away, the Jeep Easter Safari taking place from March 23-31. There’s a chance we might get the usual early preview from the brand’s Detroit studio before the drive out west.
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Source: www.autoblog.com