We Wasted Our Day by Playing With the New Jeep Gladiator Configurator

Productivity has ground to a halt here at The Drive. Jeep has turned its Gladiator configurator live, and we've all been going nuts building the trucks of our dreams.

While no pricing is live yet—for neither the options or the models themselves—you can select from four submodels, tons of colors, and a bevy of options. We built a couple we'll share with you here.

First up, we went whole hog, hooking up a Gator green Rubicon with everything we'd need to tow our fleet of wayward project cars in the cold, brutal Northeast. The Trailer Tow Package and Trailer Brake Control are a must, and we added some additional hauling and storage capability with the Cargo Management Group (with Trail Rail System and a 110-volt outlet in the bed, as well as lockable underseat storage), a spray-in bedliner, and a tonneau cover. We also sprung for the winch-capable steel front bumper—a little overboard, but hey, who says you have to be sensible?

Speaking of going overboard, we checked the boxes for the premium audio option and the Cold Weather Group (plus all-weather mats, naturally), before adding a little extra luxury with the hardtop headliner. We then opted to have the hardtop and fender flares painted, a decision I'm sure we'd regret as soon as we face our first off-road excursion (and subsequent scratch).

After that, we came back down to earth a bit and built up a Hydro Blue sport with the bare necessities—in this case, just a limited-slip diff and the all-weather mats. Both were built with a manual transmission—after all, we are auto journalists. We love manual transmissions.

While we still don't have pricing available, at least we know exactly what will be available. And besides, building up Jeeps with the online configurator is just downright fun.