Check out these wild one-off Jeeps

Glad you asked. The Jeep Safari is a celebration of Jeep (you may have pieced that one together yourself) and of the various ways you can have great big slabs of big boy fun out in the freedom of the wilderness. 

It’s held out near Moab, which is in the south-eastern corner of Utah. For those of you who aren’t from the land of stars and stripes, Utah is east of Nevada and west of Colorado, and is an exceptionally pretty part of the world, in terms of natural beauty. 

And, every Easter, this natural beauty is assailed by a phalanx of Jeeps and Jeep enthusiasts.

It’s also an opportunity for the designers and engineers at Jeep to let their hair down a bit and indulge in a few creative builds.

Well, you may have a point there. This one’s called the Quicksand, and it’s a cross between a hotrod and a desert-bashing weapon. There’s no slow, methodical rock-crawling in this thing’s future – it’s purely for all-out, full-throttle fun out on the dunes. 

There’s 392 cubic inches of Hemi V8 – that’s 6.4 litres in metric – with eight individually fuel-injected velocity stacks and a six-speed manual transmission. 

There’s also a ‘staggered’ tyre setup – with 37-inch tyres out the back and 32-inch rubber up front.

Well, it is an old Grand Cherokee, that Jeep bought second-hand. But, as you can see, it’s been thoroughly restomodded and renamed the ‘Grand One’.

The 5.2-litre V8 runs through a four-speed auto and on to some thoroughly beefed-up axles. Yes, we said four-speed. And that’s because this particular Jeep is laying on the nostalgia pretty thickly – there’s an in-car phone, a David Hasselhoff sticker and an original Game Boy in the back seat. Really.

That’s because the ZJ Grand Cherokee is nearly 25 years old and the Jeep boys want to celebrate it. There’s every possibility that this is the first Jeep product that most of the Gen Y generation saw first, so bringing in back to a mint-condition, trail-prepped condition is a bit of a nostalgia trip. 

By trail-ready, we mean that the Grand One nets a longer wheelbase, a two-inch suspension lift and new wheel arches to hold the 33-inch tyres.

How about this one, then? It’s called the Jeep Safari, and is a way to get the unparalleled visibility of the doorless, roofless Jeep, but with the added benefit of keeping you out of the elements. 

To do so, the doors are made from clear plastic, and the hard-top roof is translucent for an extra-airy feeling. The rear doors are hinged backwards, like a plastic, off-road Rolls-Royce. Lovely.

Right this way – this one’s called the Switchback. There’s a four-inch lift, with the offroad-renowned Dana 44 axles transferring power from the Pentastar 3.6-litre V6, which is less renowned. But it’ll do.

There are also remote reservoir shock absorbers, which means that each shock has an extra supply of oil, which circulates through the shock absorber and helps prevent the oil supply from overheating. If the oil does overheat, it thins out and renders the shock largely useless. And now you know.   

There are also ‘half doors’, which have special viewport in the bottoms, as well as Katzkin leather seats.

Golly, you are hard to please. How about this – the Luminator? It’s just a pretty standard Jeep, liberally coated with lights.

They are pretty trick lights, to be fair. The ones at the front swivel, depending on steering angle – just like the Citroen DS had since 1967, but let’s not judge – and the rear lights work as a scouting tool. We’ll explain. It’s like a traffic light – green, amber and red – but in this case, the yellow light means to approach slowly, not barrel through before it goes red.

Wait. You’re actually into new Jeeps? Odd. Well, this one’s called the Trailpass, which sounds like a ski ticket. 

As you can see, it isn’t – it’s a Jeep Compass with big wheels, tall suspension and some girders to protect the underside. Underneath, there’s a 2.4-litre four-cylinder with a hilariously overegged name – ‘Tigershark’ – hooked up to a nine-speed transmission.

That’s more like it. Check this out, then – the CJ66. It’s not an actual CJ Jeep, but rather more of an offroad Singer – take a newer model, then make it look old. So, there’s a TJ frame, with 1966 CJ bodywork on it, powered by a 5.7-litre Hemi V8. And these are very good things. 

More than 380bhp is fed through a six-speed manual to a pair of Dana 44 axles, which transfer everything to the sand / rock / dirt via 35-inch offroad tyres. 

So, which is your favourite? And why is it the CJ66?

Want more mad Jeep concepts? Good. Last year, we drove the 2016 Jeep concepts... including the 707bhp Trailcat