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Last week was a blur for Mopar fans with a tsunami of news regarding Stellantis’ turnaround plans that include 60 new vehicles and 50 refreshes by 2030. That’s a lot, but buried in that plan for Jeep fans was a new halo vehicle: the Scrambler.
After attempting to take the Scrambler all in during the span of less than a few minutes we reported on the upcoming truck’s removable roof, reversible rear seats, suspension, and possibly a V8 engine. But there were so many unanswered questions including how those rear seats would turn around, or even the why.
In Detroit, Michigan, Head of American Brands, Ram CEO, and head of SRT, Tim Kuniskis, in an exclusive interview on The Drivecast explained why the rear seats in the Scrambler will be reversible: the short answer is” you can then fold that seat backwards flat and it makes a bed floor like a truck,” Kuniskis said.
Listen to the entire conversation starting at the moment Kuniskis explains the Scrambler’s design and layout below.
Yes, that was Kuniskis explaining that Jeep is doing exactly what fans have asked for years: building an Easter Jeep Safari concept vehicle and putting it into production. History will be made.
Kuniskis described the Scrambler as “freaking cool.”
The more detailed explanation of the layout from Kuniskis himself, “We take the front door, and instead of having four doors, we make the front door significantly larger. Just like you would do with a two-door Charger and a four-door Charger, right? So the front door then becomes significantly larger, you open the front door, you can get into the front seat, but you also have pretty easy ingress/egress to the back seat, just like you would in the old days to a regular two-door car.”
Kuniskis continued, “But the back—I’ll call it the back cap, if you will—if you were thinking about a pickup truck, you know, the camper cap—the cap can then come off like an old K5 Blazer. That can come off and you have the seats in the back that sit at the normal position of the front seats. So while you’re in the thing—while you’re in the vehicle—it almost seems like you’re in a four-door Wrangler.”
And the final piece to the puzzle with the rear seats that move, “But since the top comes off, we’ve enabled the rear seats to be removable and flippable so that you can make them facing backwards. That’s why we put the step on the side, so you can literally walk up to the side of this thing, don’t open the door, step on the step, jump in the back, and sit in the seat. That’s cool, but that’s not really what the total purpose was. What the total purpose was is when you take the top off and you have that seat back there, you can then fold that seat backwards flat and it makes a bed floor like a truck. When you do that and the top’s off, you actually have a bigger bed back there than a Gladiator,” according to Kuniskis.
As a reminder, the Jeep Gladiator has a short 5-foot bed in every configuration along with four doors.
Kuniskis explained the Scrambler will end up being “a Swiss Army Knife” of trucks.
No timeline has been laid out for when the Jeep Scrambler, which it sounds like the official name might end up being Jeep Gladiator Scrambler SRT, will arrive. But it’s a halo model, distinct, and likely at the tail end of the plan. Which means the facelifts and updates to the rest of the Jeep lineup will come first putting the Scrambler likely arriving around 2029 or 2030.
Pricing is anyone’s guess, but as a halo model it’s hard to imagine the Scrambler costing less than $65,000.
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As Director of Content and Product, Joel draws on over 15 years of newsroom experience and inability to actually stop working to help ensure The Drive shapes the future of automotive media. He’s also a World Car Award juror.
