Most Jeeps are already distinguishable from the mass of beige by their legendary capabilities, yet for many owners the stock jeep is merely a canvas. Yesterday we asked Jalopnik readers for their favorite modified Jeeps. Here are the ten coolest.
Welcome back to Answers of the Day — our Jalopnik summer feature where we take the best ten responses from the previous day's Question of the Day and shine it up to show off. It's by you and for you, the Jalopnik readers. Enjoy!
Photo Credit: JP Magazine
10.) Rock Crawler Jeep
Suggested By: Fordboy357
Why It's Cool: Seen here in this Top Gear clip, the "rock crawler" name may be a bit of a misnomer. More accurately, you could call these things "rock runners," "rock attackers" or maybe "rock molesters." 1000 horsepower, nitrous injection, custom-built chassis; these things are less Jeeps and more one-off crazy cars. Seeing them launch themselves up the side of a cliff is cool, but seeing them shoot across the open water is even better.
Photo credit: Youtube
9.) 12-second 1976 Wagoneer
Suggested By: Cheeseslap
Why It's Cool: This thing has a 401 V8 up front and has been said to run quartermiles in the 12 second neighborhood. It's made appearances on Speed's "Pinks" show (in between reruns of Nascar qualifying) and underwent a complete restoration and transformation from mild-mannered Wagoneer to completely ridiculous quarter mile eater. Here, watch it face off against a Mustang.
Photo credit: Youtube
8.) Jeepney
Suggested By: SpainIsInYurp
Why It's Cool: Here in the States we have busses. In the Philippines, they have Jeepneys. Originally constructed from Jeeps left behind after World War II, they have grown into several generations of modified, stretched and decorated public minibuses that shuttle folks from one place to another. They're garishly colored and decorated, bringing to mind the Dekotora trucks of India or Bosozuku cars, trucks and bikes of Japan. How come everyone else gets to have this much fun on the way to work?
Photo credit: Phil-Islands.com
7.) Tank Tread Wrangler
Suggested By: minardi
Why It's Cool: Thank god for the crazy Quebecois. It's cold, there's mountains of snow on the ground. There's a Jeep in the backyard, and some tank treads at the junkyard down the street. Anyone with any sort of brain knows that logically, you put those two together, and you create an unstoppable snow-killing force. If the Jeep couldn't navigate terrain before (and it's a Jeep, so it probably could), there's nothing stopping it now.
Photo credit: Jalopnik
6.) Jurassic Park Jeep
Suggested By: mipakr
Why It's Cool: The gentleman who constructed this exact replica of the Jeep from 1993's Jurassic Park has a history of recreating movie cars: he also made his own Ecto-1 from Ghostbusters. This time, he did it from the ground up. He got a gently used 1990 Wrangler, completely redid the paint and bodywork (in his garage), made his own custom decals and went so far as to outfit it with the emergency kit of flares and flashlights in the backseat. It's been to a number of conventions and meetups, and looks exactly right.
Photo credit: The RPF
5.) NuKaiser
Suggested By: mkbruin
Why It's Cool: First off, it looks awesome. It's built on a J8 chassis with 38" tires and a M-715 front end, powered by a 2.8 liter four cylinder turbo-diesel. It climbs sand dunes like nobody's business and yet still feels pretty light, even though it weighs in at 4,500 pounds. My only concern would be headroom, but in a Jeep this cool looking, who cares? I'll shrink.
Photo credit: VWVortex
4.) Jeep Lower 40
Suggested By: Engineer guy
Why It's Cool: The almost cartoonish Lower 40 still manages to look awesome, not silly. It's mostly a stock Wrangler, but has 40" tires wrapped around 20" wheels, chopped windshield and flared fenders. It also gets a 380 horsepower 5.7 liter Hemi V8, while maintaining a stock center of gravity. Yup, it manages to increase ground clearance but remain as stable as its off-the-assembly-line counterparts.
3.) Watanabe Drift Jeep
Suggested By: TheSwagger
Why It's Cool: Looking at it, you get the feeling that there's probably not much Jeep left on this thing, and you'd be partially right. It had its regular motor pulled in favor of Nissan's SR20DET, for its drifting provenance. This is the engine that powers the almighty 180SX, poster child of drift cars. The whole thing got lowered and chopped, and now looks so strange that it's actually kind of cool.
Photo credit: CarDomain
2.) Viper-Engined CJ7 Jeep
Suggested By: E34 is an underrated E30...
Why It's Cool: Some brilliant crazy person had an extra Viper engine lying around and decided to drop it in his old CJ7. He rebuilt the entire thing, from new aluminum body panels to a completely reworked suspension and chassis, and what a beautiful monster it is. Apparently, these aren't all that rare: a quick Google search turned up a number of these things floating around the internet. It makes us happy to see that there's more than one nutty person putting giant V10s into little Wranglers.
Photo credit: Ron Davis Radiators
1.) Hafner Rotabuggy
Suggested By: LyleLanley
Why It's Cool: Yes, Jeeps with massive engines that can drive over water and fight off dinsaurs with wheels as tall as you are cool. But what about Jeeps that can fly? During World War II, the British army wanted a way to drop Jeeps into battle from above. They started testing and realized that they could drop a Jeep from almost eight feet in the air without doing any damage to it. They stuck a big helicopter rotor on the top, along with fins and control surfaces out the back, and towed the whole thing behind a big Bentley to see if it could get airborne. It did, gliding at 45 miles per hour. Eventually, the Brits dropped the whole thing out the back of a Armstrong-Whitworth Whitley bomber, and it flew at 70 miles per hour for ten minutes at an altitude of 400 feet. Soon after, the British army realized that they could drop vehicles via glider, and the Rotabuggy was determined to be redundant. Development was cancelled, and the sole test vehicle was lost to history.
Photo credit: Listverse.com