Earlier this year, the American Stellantis brands announced a whole host of new models for each of its brands, including a bunch of performance models to flesh out its rebooted SRT brand. One of those has had us particularly intrigued: the Wrangler Scrambler SRT. All we knew was that it would be a single-cab pickup like the CJ-based truck from the ’70s, and that it would be an impressive machine.
At SEMA, Jeep has surprised us with a concept of the Wrangler Scrambler, and it looks like it’s ready to hunt down Ford Raptors, even in fast-paced desert driving.
It Has A Feature That No Wrangler Has Ever Had
The Wrangler Scrambler is indeed a Wrangler at heart. Jeep says that it uses a Wrangler frame, and you can still see some of the roots in the body, particularly in the windshield and parts of the front fenders. However, Jeep has outfitted it for extreme, high-speed off-roading. Most significant of the changes is the suspension design. Though blasphemous in some circles, the Scrambler has independent front suspension.
Jeep says the design was selected specifically for improved stability and control in high-speed driving, and the design is the standard for competitors such as the aforementioned Raptors, and even competition trucks. Don’t worry about a loss of capability, though. At least on this concept, the suspension was developed and sourced from Currie Enterprises, which has a long history of building high-performance off-road components. The front suspension allows for 14 inches of travel, and the trophy-truck-inspired rear suspension and solid axle offer 15 inches of travel. They’re also evolutions of a suspension that was tested on a Gladiator race truck campaigned by Currie in the NORRA 500 race.
Under the hood, Jeep has fitted its naturally aspirated 6.4-liter Hemi V8 from the Wrangler 392. It makes the same 470 horsepower and 470 pound-feet of torque as the Wrangler 392, too. This is an interesting choice, since the aforementioned Gladiator race truck actually had a Hellcat engine. This seems to us like a hint that the production model will feature this engine, at least as standard. All that power will be welcome in the concept particularly, since it’s also wearing huge 37-inch tires on race-ready wheels.
What Did Jeep Change On The Outside?
While the Wrangler bones are evident, Jeep made huge changes to the design and feature set of the Scrambler. Most obviously, it’s a two-door pickup like its namesake, but it’s also not just a two-door Wrangler with a bed attached. The doors have been lengthened, which was likely done to aid access to the rear seats.
Those rear seats are particularly unique, as they can be fitted facing the front like normal, or removed for more bed space. They can even be turned to face the rear like in a Subaru Brat. The nose of the Wrangler Scrambler looks significantly different, too. It seems to borrow more from the Jeep J-Series pickup trucks first introduced in the 1960s.
Of course, the truck bed is the big addition, and it’s a good-sized one. With the rear seats removed, it’s nearly 6 feet long. The Gladiator, by contrast, comes in at just 5 feet. Leaving the rear seats in place does shrink the length down to a bit more than 3 feet, though.
CarBuzz Insight – Why This Matters:
Jeep has only said that this is a concept, but as we already mentioned, the company said a production model specifically called Wrangler Scrambler SRT would be coming to production, and that it would be a two-door pickup. It’s entirely possible that some styling and suspension changes could be applied, but we suspect that this is a strong preview of what’s to come. We’re betting the production model will show up sometime next year, and we won’t be surprised if the price tag ends up flirting with six figures considering its many changes.
Since people are still happily paying prices in that range for Bronco Raptors, Ram TRXs, and more, though, we bet Jeep won’t have trouble finding buyers.
