Bill Harrah, of Harrah's Hotel and Casino fame, once commissioned this Ferrari SUV after the manufacturer refused to build him a custom 4-wheel-drive adorned with the prancing horse. Yep, that's a 365 GT nose spliced onto a 1969 Jeep Wagoneer, and while it's currently running an AMC V8, the eBay listing says it could easily be converted to Ferrari V12 power. Hmmm, easy for them to say. With four days left to go, the Jerrari currently hovers at $13K-and-change—a bargain?
Via Jalopnik.
One year ago [Chrysler Suicide Watch 12] I opined that Jeep was morphing from the world's most uniquely-American brand into a schizophrenic abyss of muddled models. Of course, this analysis hardly required the keen insights of branding guru Al Reis. Jeep had just introduced the unconvincing Compass and platform partner Patriot to the market. And they were preparing to launch a re-skinned Jeep Liberty. The Liberty was the reigning best selling small SUV on the market. So one year later, how has the brand progressed? As a Jeep owner and acolyte of [what's left of] the brand, I'm sorry to say that Jeep's crisis is far deeper than before. Continue reading at The Truth About Cars.
First, it was a 2003 recall for same-year Liberties with lower ball joint problems. After some of the replacements were apparently botched, Chrysler issued a new recall three years later that included 800,000 2002-2006 Liberties, addressing LBJ's that were showing "excessive wear and looseness." This time around, it's the upper ball joints that are the problem on over 300,000 '02-'03 Liberties. There've been a series of high-profile incidents in which the BJ's have separated, dumping the body onto one or both front tires and thus seriously ruining the driver's day. At least one ball joint has separated at 75 mph, and a handful have let go while the driver was either pulling out into traffic or making a left turn, leaving the stricken Liberty stranded in the path of oncoming traffic. To make a bad situation worse, Chrysler hasn't yet actually issued a recall on this particular problem, instead awaiting the results of the NHTSA's "engineering analysis" and attributing complaints to customers' "confusion about the difference between the [previously recalled] lower and upper ball joints." Sure, yet another recall of the 300,000 affected Liberties wouldn't be cheap, but can Chrysler afford to hem and haw while Liberty ball joints are coming apart at highway speeds?
Source: AP
Most people know only of the AMC-Jeep connection in one way: That the former owned the latter for 17 years. More attentive students of military history could make another connection via AM General, which AMC spun off to handle its military contracts. But Kenosha had another equally as strong, but lesser known connection to the military in the M-422 Mighty Mite.
Similar to the original Jeep, a team of Bantam designers whipped up the idea of a light quarter-ton four-wheel-drive truck, and a pair of automakers competed to build it, but in this case, Willys lost out to American Motors, which built the M-422 from 1960 to 1963 with an aluminum body, four-wheel independent suspension and an air-cooled AMC-built 52hp V-4 engine designed specifically for the Mighty Mite.
American Motors produced just 3,922 Mighty Mites in two or three different configurations, which makes the one we found on the Hemmings Motor News classifieds sorta rare. The fact that it's a short-wheelbase (65-inch) version narrows it down to one of the first 1,045. Just as rare are the included photographs of the air-cooled V-4 in the Mite’s engine bay. Volo Auto Museum in Illinois has the Mighty Mite for sale for $11,998.
By the way, the Mighty Mite is not to be confused with the Mini Moke or the M-151 MUTT, two similar, but completely different, small, independently sprung Jeep-like vehicles with much larger production runs.
It's always kind of sad to see a bunch of people totally destroy a perfectly serviceable ride just so they can have a goofy video to post on YouTube, especially when that ride had offroad capabilities as solid as this unfortunate Cherokee did. Oh well, at least it wasn't an Eagle. And you gotta admit, some of the footage is pretty cool. Wait for the monster-truck jumps at the end!
By David
aka Highspeedhijinks
Mopar knows how to make some pretty killer rides for the street. This time they made some sick rides for the dirt. The so-called "Psychotic Six" is a group of one-off Mopar specialty vehicles designed to obliterate anything mother nature can put beneath their tires. Let's start with what I consider the leader of the pack, the Hemi "JKL" Wrangler. Not only is this Wrangler packing a Hemi, it's got the 6.1 litre SRT8 Hemi. Next up is another alternative-powerplant Jeep, this one with a 2.8 L 4 cylinder diesel, originally designed as a test mule for integrating diesels into the TJ lineup. Next, for all your rock-crawlers out there, the "All Access" JK Wrangler is wearing a pair of military spec Dana 60 axles tough enough to take the twisting force of scaling large boulders or trees. If you're looking for more military spec than just your axles, the "J8 Sarge" is the Jeep for you. Olive drab paint, a snorkel on the hood, and the same 2.8 L turbo diesel that powers the "All Access" gives this jeep the ability to take on any mission it's given. But what's military heritage without some "liberty"? The "Liberator II" boasts a whole list offroad goodies, rock rails, an ABR locke,r and a 2-inch lift to clear 33-inch tires. Finally, brute power only goes by one name in the Mopar world: "Power Wagon". A modern interpretation of the 1945-68 behemoth, it's motivated by a 6.7 litre Cummins diesel and rolling on 40-inch tires. With all that power and the winch hanging off the nose, this monster can pull you out of any predicament you might find yourself in. Check out the full lineup after the jump!
Source: Four Wheeler
Continue reading "Extreme Mopar Lineup: The Psychotic Six" »
It pays to have a good solid roof over your head. And if you drive an SUV and go off road, you definitely want a sturdy roof. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety just tested the roof strength of eleven SUVs built between 1996 and 2005. The winner? The first generation Xterra, which was able to withstand 12,000 pounds of crushing force. That's roughly three times the Xterra's own weight, and almost twice as much weight as the last placed Jeep Grand Cherokee was able to withstand. Nice work, Nissan. Read the full IIHS report.
Here are some pics of damage on a 2002 Jeep Wrangler Sahara in Nevada. Apparently the guy had a flat at some point with the left front tire and put on his spare, which was a 30x9.50. Problem is, the rest of his tires were 32x10.50s. Everything would have been ok, except it started snowing and he figured why not throw it in four-wheel drive? So here is what happens to a Jeep transfer case while in 4wd and different size tires--it disappears! Note the hole in the floor and the bumps in the skid plate. More pics after the jump.
Continue reading "Why You Don't Run Different Size Tires on 4x4s" »
Generally, bad reviews of anything—records, restaurants, cars—are just more entertaining. Even when people are just saying, and not even hating, commentary which tears a product, or person, to shreads makes for pretty compelling copy. Why do you think buying a 12-pack of High Life without seeing a picture of Britany Spears is unlikely? But leave it to Consumer Reports to do the impossible, as the magazine's list of 2008's 11 worst cars is as boring as you'd expect from the consumer advocates. Reading this list is only slightly more gripping than reading my mother's recipie for corn chowder. And I really didn't like how the reviews dismissed off-road performance, then proceeded to trash a bunch of off-road vehicles. Bravo y'all! Of course, domestics make up the lion's share of the field, but there are also a couple of foriegn marques in the mix. What do you think about this list?
The American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy—whew, say that three times fast!—just released a list of the greenest and meanest cars in America, and on the green side, Toyota's Prius came up a big, fat loser. Sorry. It actually came in second, behind Honda's greener-than-Kermit-the-Frog-on-a-lilly pad Civic GX, which runs on compressed air. As expected, small cars and hybrids make up the remainder of the green list, and also as expected, the rides on the mean list look way, way more fun. The VW Tourage—with the CFC-belching diesel V10—took the top "honors," while dream machines like Bugatti's Veyron and Lamborghini's Murcielago came in at numbers two and six, respectively. Of course, neither one of those models probably sees 1/10 the annual miles a Ford Focus—number nine on the green list—does, so in reality, they probably pollute a lot less. But whatever, check out the full breakdown over at Wired.
I decided I had too much money and not enough cars, so, naturally, I spent some money on more cars. A buddy and I hopped in my turbo EXP and drove 300 miles to Stevensville, MT and picked up an 89 Jeep Cherokee to use as a parts car for my existing Cherokee. Deciding that wasn't enough by itself, I hooked a trailer to my $350 titleless Jeep, loaded up my EXP, and proceeded to Bozeman, MT to look at an 88 Merkur XR4Ti. Figuring that 200 bucks was a bargain for a non-running and wrecked Merkur, I bought it. We unloaded the EXP from the trailer, parked it, and fired up the barely-running Merkur and drove it onto the trailer for the drive home to Havre. I guess I'll be making another road trip in the near future to pick up the car I started out with!
How about you? What did you do this weekend?
I stopped counting after a while cause our Wrangler vs. FJ contest wasn't even close. UG's comment seems to sum up the general feeling:
If you plan to attack trails with your rig, go with the Jeep.
If you plan to attack speed bumps at the mall, go with the FJ.
Ouch. I noticed that it ended up on a few Jeep forums and at least one FJ board--maybe the Jeep guys are just more vocal. Anyway, I'll try to pick a closer match-up next week. Let me know if you have any ideas.
Ok, I admit it's always fun to pit imports vs. domestics. Brings out the best in people (though that Nissan vs. Honda showdown got a bit heated, too). Both of these vehicles are great off-road, and they look great on the road, too. Both are affordable, have huge aftermarket support, and are very popular at CarDomain. So, which would you choose?
