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Thursday, 30 November 2017

Mojitos and Lift Kits: The 2018 Jeep Wrangler JL Is All Ready for Mopar Parts

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November 30, 2017 at 6:40 pm by Clifford Atiyeh | Photography by Steve Siler and Michael Simari

FCA’s Mopar division has readied a couple hundred off-road mods for the JL-generation 2018 Wrangler before the new Jeep even treads on a showroom floor.

The two kitted-out Wranglers at the L.A. auto show aren’t limited-edition decal jobs—although you can be assured those will soon follow. They’re sample creations using parts from the latest Jeep Performance Parts and Mopar accessories catalog.

The Mojito Green Rubicon Unlimited is as tall and stiff as the cocktail, featuring a two-inch lift and 35-inch-tall BFGoodrich KM2 tires on 17-inch beadlock rims. Because the Wrangler’s standard doors serve no real purpose other than to be removed, Mopar offers in their place corral-style gates made of two-inch-thick steel tubing. Below them, friction-coated rock rails provide grip when the adventurous driver inevitably sticks the Wrangler in deep mud. A water-resistant winch, grab handles attached to the roll bars, rubber floor mats with drainage plugs, and first-aid kits hanging onto the front seatbacks will make the adventure that much more enjoyable.

For search-party rescues, the Mojito Jeep comes with four auxiliary LED lamps operable via a prewired dashboard switch. A pair of seven-inch, 8000-lumen lights attach to a bar above the winch, and another five-inch, 4000-lumen pair mount at the base of the A-pillars. A snorkel and cold-air intake keep the 3.6-liter V-6 humming under shoulder-deep water, while a reinforced tailgate mount can support a 37-inch-tall spare tire and neatly integrates the third brake light within the wheel hub.

The white two-door Sport hardtop also has the same two-inch lift and 35-inch tires, although the KO2-spec rubber has a milder tread pattern and mounts on traditional 17-inch aluminum wheels. Its contrasting black grille, black fuel cap, black Moab-inspired door graphics, four LED auxiliary lamps, and spare-tire reinforcement aren’t the story here. More notable is the fact that this is the first ever Wrangler with a factory roof rack that can be configured to mount cargo carriers, skis, snowboards, or bikes. It also has a new, hinged “tailgate table” that swings down from the inside of the tailgate.

The first JL Wranglers should be delivered in the coming weeks. Time to start customizing.

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Mojitos and Lift Kits: The 2018 Jeep Wrangler JL Is All Ready for Mopar Parts

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Feature · November 2009

The Hard Way to Hemingway: We Drive a $120,000 Jeep EarthRoamer

We take a Jeep EarthRoamer over two 8000-foot mountain passes, skirting a massacre site, a lost hiker, Hemingway's grave, and someone's misplaced underwear.

by JOHN PHILLIPS

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Bangle’s Back: The Redspace REDS Is a Cyberpunk People Pod

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November 30, 2017 at 6:24 pm by Davey G. Johnson | Photography by Davey G. Johnson

It’s a spot of madness, this machine, as if Frank Rinderknecht had engineered a hookup between a phone booth and a golf cart at a ’90s rave somewhere on the outskirts of propriety. It makes a bit of sense, then, that former BMW design chief Chris Bangle is involved. The vehicle is called the REDS, a backronym coined by Bangle and defined by Redspace CEO Wang Jinan as standing for Revolutionary Electric Dream Space. Let 100 electric daisies bloom, dudes.

Redspace itself is a part of the Wang-helmed China Hi-Tech Group Corporation, one of the many concerns diving into the Middle Kingdom’s electrified future, but the company’s take on what a small-footprint electric-drive vehicle could be is rather more radical than simply adding a battery pack to a sedan or a hatch and calling it good. Redspace has yet to provide performance figures for the ungainly bot box, but specs seem to be beside the point, anyway. The REDS is all about what goes on when the car is stopped.

The steering wheel flips up beyond vertical, getting it out of the way of the occupants. The front seats swivel to face the rear passengers, turning the diminutive auto into a cozy conference center. Those same seats also fold up into footstools. A 17-inch screen, which largely retracts into the dash while on the go—it sticks up just enough to house the offset gauges—pops up to allow the viewing of films, or, we presume, psychedelic displays to enhance whatever you might be consuming while plopped down on what Bangle refers to as the car’s rear “love seat.”

At a mere 117 inches in overall length, the REDS is nearly three feet shorter than a Mini Cooper Hardtop. Put another way, its wheelbase is said to be 19.7 inches shorter than that of a Fiat 500. It is said to be made of aluminum, and it features a weird abstract map on the ceiling. What’s on display at the Los Angeles auto show is very clearly a prototype, its odd gaps lending it more of a movie-prop feel than the vibe of an actual car. Oh, and that half-conical, forward-canted windshield? Aside from making room for the forward-tipped steering wheel, it’s said to reduce the interior greenhouse effect. It’s hard to look at the REDS and see anything but a human-swallowing pill meant to brighten up some strange and claustrophobic dystopia. Which, given the day and age, might just be what some of us need.