Mystery Jeeps?As he was coming home from Iraq, reader Rick Siegfried snapped these photos of what appear to be long-wheelbase YJs at the Kuwait airport. "From what I could see, both were four-wheel drive, one had a hardtop and the other was set up as some sort of personnel carrier with a soft top and inward facing bench seats in the back. They have been sitting for some time, as a couple of the tires were flat. I wish I had been able to get a closer look at them and find out more information on them. If I had known about these earlier and been stationed in Kuwait instead of Iraq, I would have inquired about buying them and shipping them back to the States."
Had Rick spied some sort of pre-Wrangler-Unlimited test mules? Nothing quite that exciting. According to one of our sources at DCX, the company has sold long-wheelbase Jeeps overseas as military vehicles for some time now. So maybe it's not news, but one would be cool to have, just for the uniqueness factor.
Old-School Muscle From DodgeDodge must figure there's a niche of truck guys out there who are also huge fans of the Dodge Charger Daytona and Plymouth Superbird, those iconic winged musclecars that terrorized NASCAR in the late '60s and early '70s. That would explain the Dodge Ram Daytona, a limited-edition, Hemi-powered Ram 1500 dressed with a retro rearend stripe and foot-tall airfoil. Unlike the Ram SRT-10, the Daytona package is available in 4x4 models as well as two-bys. Two colors are offered: Silver Metallic or the vintage Go ManGo! (seen here). The trucks were introduced in February, in conjunction with the Daytona 500, and are priced starting at $32,000.
This Just InCongratulations to Jeep: The new Grand Cherokee earned five-star frontal and side-impact crash ratings from the NHTSA. This is the ninth consecutive Chrysler product to earn the highest frontal-crash rating; others include the Durango, Ram, and Dakota. nFirst beer, now tires? A safety group has asked the NHTSA to require born-on dates on tires to protect consumers from buying rubber that may be too old to be safe. Tire dealers insist there's no problem, as they turn their stock fast enough for age to be a nonissue. nSUV sales may be in a slump, but pickup sales aren't. According to Automotive Digest, growth in fullsize pickup sales in 2004 outpaced the growth in sales of all SUVs, the first time that's happened in 10 years. nLook for more limited-edition vehicles from Dodge and Jeep, says Automotive News. Chrysler hopes spiffing up products with option packages, like the Rocky Mountain Jeeps and Ram Daytona, will prove to be a better-or at least more profitable-way to improve sales than incentives. nLust for Quadrasteer? Better buy now, as GM is dropping the rear-steer option from its fullsize trucks when the '07 models come out next year. The option just didn't catch on with buyers, even when GM cut the option price in half. nLook for a V-6 version of Land Rover's LR3, possibly as early as this summer. SEMA forwarded a report that an upgraded version of Ford's 4.0L V-6 may find its way into a less expensive version of the Discovery replacement. nSpeaking of LR3, that model's popularity has helped Land Rover notch record sales recently. LR3 sales made up more than half of all Rover sales in February, which was a record month for Rover.
Environmental & Political WatchAccording to our friends at the BlueRibbon Coalition, a senior U.S. district judge ruled recently that the U.S. Forest Service "has not been properly managing off-highway vehicle use in [California's] Eldorado National Forest." Is this good news? Maybe. The case that spurred this decision was originally brought by an anti-access organization, but a number of vehicle access advocates (including Cal4Wheel and the BRC) joined the action to represent our side. Both camps will now submit information for a future hearing, which will search for remedies for the problems. "We remain committed to working with the Forest Service, the plaintiffs, and interested members of the public in forging a new plan that will preserve the environment while allowing reasonable human access to the forest," said Don Klusman, natural resource consultant for the California Association of 4 Wheel Drive Clubs.
The Chicago Tribune reports the government is raising the CAFE standards for trucks for the first time since 1996. CAFE is the average fuel economy figure a manufacturer has to achieve with its entire line of vehicles or face stiff fines. The 2005 truck standard of 21 mpg is up from the previous 20.7-mpg level, will increase again in 2006 to 21.6 mpg, and again in 2007 to 22.2 mpg. Bigger changes will come after that, though, as the NHTSA is reviewing the very definition of what makes a vehicle a "truck." The idea is to close the fuel economy loophole that crossover SUVs and other carlike "trucks," like the PT Cruiser, currently enjoy. Cars have to meet a much stricter 27.5-mpg CAFE standard. So far the government agency is mum as to what the requirements will be, but any major mpg increase will more than likely require truck makers to reduce the size and weight of their vehicles, opening a real can of worms.