I don’t know how Jeep‘s internal conversations went when discussing this year’s Easter Jeep Safari concepts, but I have to imagine they were something like this: “Hey, should we build another EV this year?” “I don’t know. All that’s kind of screwed right now, isn’t it?” “Yeah, I guess you’re right—even though the Magneto was pretty sick.” “…” “What if we just tinker with an XJ?”
And you know what? That’s what they did, and it rocks. The XJ Pioneer Concept proves that you don’t have to reinvent the wheel (or make a manual transmission work with an EV) to build a sick rig. As cool as it is to see engineers flex their muscles, a throwback Cherokee like this hits all the right buttons to make a 4×4 fan say, “Shoot yeah.”
I’ve loved Jeep’s wild concepts over the years. I remember when I was brand new to this gig and they unveiled the Quicksand, a chopped two-door Wrangler with a 392 V8 and side-dump exhaust. I was enamored. But now that I’m almost 10 years older and a bit more jaded than I was back then, I find a ton of joy in a story like this Cherokee’s.
Jeep stumbled on it and quickly realized it was a total creampuff. It only had 80,000 miles on the clock, and there were records in the glovebox for every fuel stop in its life. How often do you find a car that’s been cared for so well? The 1984 XJ was so clean, so original that Jeep decided not to mess with it too much. Instead, they went the OEM+ route and polished the areas where a compact four-wheeler such as this should shine the most.
Rather than shoehorning a Hemi under the hood, Jeep kept the factory 2.8-liter V6, automatic transmission, and 4.10 rear-end that got it this far. There’s a two-inch suspension lift, and in order to fit the 33-inch tires, the EJS team reworked the wheel openings without hacking away at too much. Jeep purposely kept the XJ’s height down because they can get really squirrely when they’re jacked up—anyone who’s ever driven one will tell you the same.
Subtle details like the integrated rock rails are easy to love because they improve usability without making themselves known. Others like the Apple Macintosh Plus-inspired cooler are great, well, for obvious reasons. It paints the past in a nostalgically fond light without appropriating it to fit the current day. That isn’t always easy to do, especially as other automakers try printing money by making old cars new again.
In short, I’m stoked to see Jeep embrace something like the XJ Pioneer Concept. I know we won’t get anything resembling it as a production model—Jeep just brought back the Cherokee as what’s arguably the anti-XJ—but you can still find these on Facebook Marketplace, y’know. So use this build as inspiration for your own and get to wheelin’. You won’t regret it once you’re climbing up and down that iconic slick rock.
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