Media | Articles
An SJ Gladiator Throwback on 40s, and 6 Other Wild Concepts for 2025’s Easter Jeep Safari
The Easter Jeep Safari in Moab is the brand’s biggest pilgrimage of the year. Off-road fans of all stripes, but especially the Jeep faithful, flock to the sandstone slot canyons to meet up and test their trail rig’s 4×4 prowess. As such, Jeep has long used the event to parade out a variety of custom-built models, particularly Wranglers, with some of them hinting at future offerings from the factory. This year’s crop is particularly exciting—let’s take a look at all seven of them.
Jeep Bug Out 4xe Concept
Jeep designers looked at ultralight backpacking for inspiration for this overlanding build. It’s an extended two-door wrangler that features a carbon-fiber top with an extra four inches of headroom and anchor points to mount a hammock to get out of the elements in comfort. It wears PEA51 matte silver exterior paint with yellow accents and a set of high-clearance flares to fit 18-inch lightweight Forgeline wheels mounted with 37-inch BFGoodrich KM3 mud-terrain tires. The interior features a flat floor with a spray-in bedliner and a cargo net, along with MOLLE panels for stowing gear.
Jeep Convoy Concept
The Convoy is a throwback to the full-size SJ Gladiator that was based on the classic Wagoneer design by Brooks Stevens. An homage to Jeep’s military trucks, it features brown canvas half doors and top, a 12,000-pound Warn winch, and 40-inch BFGoodrich Krawler tires. Jeep has been teasing us with the retro Wagoneer/J-truck front end for so long, it’s practically cruel and unusual punishment. This one, the first with a seven-slot grille, may be the best iteration yet.
Jeep Gladiator High Top Honcho Concept
A throwback to ’70s Jeep trucks, the custom graphics on the High Top Honcho need to come to production. Ford offers throwback graphics for the Bronco and Bronco Sport, and these look every bit as good. Besides the graphics and concept flat steel fenders, most of this impressive off-roader was built with off-the-shelf parts like the Decked bed storage system and AEV front bumper. It rides on a set of burly Dana 60 axles with 5.38:1 gearing that turn 40-inch BFGoodrich All-Terrain T/A KO3 tires mounted on painted steel wheels.
Jeep Rewind Concept
This nostalgic look back was inspired by some of the Millennial Jeep designers’ first cars. To reflect the simpler design of those ’80s and ’90s Jeeps, the team started with a 2.0-liter two-door Wrangler, painted it Grimace purple, and gave it some era-appropriate graphics. It wears 17-inch AEV wheels with 37-inch BFGoodrich KM3 mud-terrain tires— which would have been absolutely massive back in the ’90s—and a stripped-down, neon interior with a ’90s cellular car phone and some other vintage cues. We never thought we’d love something that looks so much like the carpet from an arcade.
Marketplace
Buy and sell classics with confidence
Jeep Wrangler 4xe Sunchaser Concept
The Sunchaser shows off the Wrangler’s flexibility and customizability with lighting and storage options galore. It’s showing off some concept exterior parts like the side storage boxes, vented high-top steel fender lares, and the “Mopar ILLUMINAT3 off-road pivoting light bar accessory concept,” which sounds way too thought out to not be headed into production soon.
Jeep Wrangler 4xe Blueprint Concept
This one is unapologetically showing off what’s possible with parts from Mopar’s extensive catalog of aftermarket parts. There are more than 35 pieces, each dipped in Mopar blue and wearing a QR code that leads EJS attendees to the product’s store page. Some of the Mopar accessories include rock rails, snorkel kit, bumpers, light brackets, and three different kinds of wheels: one shown on the driver side, one on the passenger side, and one on the spare.
Jeep J6 Honcho Concept
Find more values
Search for prices of other cars, trucks, vans and motorcycles
The Convoy Concept interests me because I’m a fan of the old Gladiator. The rest of them, though I’m sure are nice, just strike me as “what haven’t we done that we can do to make something different than what’s been done before?” – or really, just doing things to be doing things. The Convoy actually presents something different than what’s already available, and gives us OGs a real nostalgic look.
Nothing too interesting here. They have done better on the concepts. Some of these the colors are not the best.
I, for one, am surprised, but very pleased that Jeep is still doing these annual concepts in light of their current financial situation. They’ve shared some very cool rigs over the years.
I understand that Jeep is trying to keep that rough and tumble utility look. However when I see them it comes off as a bunch of deliberately exposed cheap plastic bits. I saw a factory fresh unit the other day and the paint quality was noticeably god awful. I’ve seen better el -cheapo paint jobs. Enough so that I’d walk away and not buy. Not the first time I’ve seen that recently on Ram/Jeep either. They might want to look at there quality control first before releasing a new round of supposedly limited editions. Or are the decal versions are their fix?
The graphics/colors on some these vehicles don’t do much for me, but I would consider a 2 door Wrangler based pickup. The Gladiator is just too long for my needs. I just want a reasonably sized, off road capable vehicle that does “truck stuff”. For everything else I have what’s known as a “car”.
I do like the fact Jeep builds in significant off road performance without raising the vehicles CG to silly (and dangerous) heights.