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Every car company wish they had the tradition and cult following that Jeep has. Jeep vehicles remain cool no matter how old they get. If it’s a Jeep, it’s cool. Period. This means that Jeep can always dig a couple decades back and re-introduce something nostalgic with a modern twist. Old Jeep fans love the good old days, and young buyers like the idea of getting something that is timeless. I saw this happen to the Jeep Wrangler when I was in high school.

I was 15 and I was saving hard to buy a Jeep Wrangler, but all I could afford was a ten-year-old; CJ-7, the older version of the Wrangler. I was too young to realize that an old Jeep was still cool, so I was very conscious of the CJ-7’s full canvas doors instead of the hip new metal half doors. Plus, the headlights were round, and all new Wranglers had square headlights. It blew my mind a year later when the new Jeep Wrangler had round headlights again. After a decade, it was time to bring it back.

Concept cars rarely come to life. They seem mostly to generate hype for a car company, and to hint to car buyers a direction they are going. So I was thrilled to see that Jeep wants to re-introduce the Gladiator, a Jeep truck.

The Gladiator concept;looks pretty damn cool. The design is clean and understated, not as outrageous as other recent Jeep concepts. (Which leads me to believe that this will actually get manufactured.) I like the rugged exposed hinges, notched windows, and flat windshield. I read somewhere that it might even have a rag top that you can slide back. That would be bad to the bone.

I’m not a Jeep historian, but I believe this would be Jeep’s 5th version of a pickup. You can see elements in each of these trucks woven into the Gladiator Concept.
The first was a military truck built from the 1940s Jeep Willys. I’ve actually seen a couple of these lowered and turned into hot rods. Even with big rims under the fenders,;a Jeep can’t;look quite right when lowered.

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The second truck was the 1962 Jeep Gladiator, a full-size pickup truck based on the SJ Jeep Wagoneer SUV. I don’t think they sold many of these, because I’ve never seen one in real life.

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The third Jeep truck was the 1982 Jeep Scrambler, which was a long-bed version of the classic Jeep. Unlike the first-generation truck, you could actually remove the hard-top roof over the cab. The Methodist minister in town had a Jeep Scrambler when I was in middle school. I was stunned by how different it was than the modern Jeeps around school, but I knew it was a cool.

The four truck was 1986 Jeep Comanche, which was based off of the Jeep Cherokee SUV that was introduced two years earlier in 1984. The Comanche was sold for the next six years until 1992. But the boxy Cherokee SUV;looked the same for almost;15 years, until 2001 when it stopped being produced. That year it shared the car lots with the SUV that what would eventually replace it, the Jeep Liberty. My buddy had a Comanche in high school, and we cruised town in it and had a lot of fun.

As I mentioned earlier, the tame looks of this Comanche concept probably means they’re going to put this vehicle into production.; But I’m afraid it will be too late. By then, the Hummer H3 Truck will already rule the block:

How can you not like this truck? It’s futuristic, badass, and just cool. I’ve never thought about it, but Hummer and Jeep share similar stories. Jeep was a military issue vehicle, and so was Hummer. Jeep was then sold the general public and eventually bought up by Dodge/Chrysler. Hummer was sold to the public, then bought up by General Motors. And both Jeep and Hummer keep their off-road appeal, but get comfortable enough for day-to-day use. But the most common attribute shared by Jeep and Hummer is that they are beautiful and high maintanence, just like the women they attract.

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