Tread Lightly

Growing the brand beyond this trinity seems to be a daunting task for the Jeep folks. You can’t just slap the seven-slot grille, round headlamps and trapezoidal wheel openings on anything and call it a Jeep.

“There’s room stretch it and expand it,” Sgalia says, “as long as we keep it authentic.”

Liberty seems like the biggest stretch for Jeep. The curvy roofline and fenders were a dramatic departure from the Cherokee it replaced, but fear not, the Cherokee styling is back in the very retro-looking Commander that wraps previous-generation Cherokee styling around the Grand Cherokee mechanicals and adds a third row seat.

It’s not that Jeep hasn’t explored uncharted territory (something its core vehicles are designed to do), releasing several interesting concepts at North American auto shows over the last several years. They brought a number of them to Newark, New Jersey’s Liberty Park for a media drive. While these one-off creations often look better than they drive, it still presented the opportunity to look at some of the directions that Jeep has explored over the last several years.

Hurricane

You could call the Hurricane a dream car … literally. When the Jeep design team was called upon to add the third piece to the tryptic of over-the-top vehicles, taking the stage at the North American International Auto Show, following the Dodge Tomahawk Viper-powered motorcycle and Mercedes-Benz ME412 supercar, designer Aaron Pizutti took it on as a personal challenge. The idea for Hurricane came to him in a dream. The concept was so radical yet so perfect that design chief Trevor Creed and CEO Dieter Zetsche were called out of a meeting to see the initial sketches.

Sgalia calls Hurricane “the ultimate off-road vehicle.”

“It’s the prefect marriage between form and function,” Sgalia adds.

The Hurricane is built up around its unique transfer case. The case, about the size of a 72-qt. cooler uses a special gear set that takes the power from the two 5.7L Hemi V-8s and send it out as a single output to the rest of the case.

Chief Engineer, Doug Quigley says that by designing the system for a single output, the patented design can be used for any-type of off-road application.

“It could be one V-8 engine, it could be a V-8 and a 4-cylinder, two four cylinders or a gas engine in front and an electric motor in back,” Quigley says.

The power from the box is distributed through hydro-electronic differentials with a driveshaft going to each of the four wheels. The vehicle also has inboard brakes which keep them out of harms way when doing some serious off-roading.

The two Hemis are bolted to automatic transmissions. Each engine has its own ECU and there is a central control unit that monitors both so that shift points are exact, no matter what RPMs are. The two engines can put a combined 750 hp to the wheels, but the vehicle can run on only one engine, by shutting down either front or rear V-8s. Both Hemis are equipped with DCX’s Multi-Displacement System, which deactivates one bank of cylinders when the vehicle is cruising. So, the Hurricane can run on 16, eight or four cylinders.

Sgalia says that Hurricane posed some interesting design challenges. With most all of the suspension components exposed, they had to be designed – something that most exterior designers don’t pay much attention too. Each upper and lower A-arm, differential and axle component and spring a shock system show extraordinary attention to detail. One could spend hours ogling the chassis’ billet aluminum bits and springs painted the same metallic red as the Hemi engine blocks. Sgalia says that the design team initially discussed painting the suspension components but couldn’t bring themselves to covering them in paint.

The entire vehicle was designed in ALIAS, moved to CATIA and sent straight to the cutting machine.

Sgalia says the only ‘prototype’ made was a plywood seating buck, “to make sure we could reach all of the gadgets and see out of the thing.”

The carbon fiber body provides most of the vehicles structure. It too, went directly from math to mold with the final piece baked in Metalcrafter’s autoclave. Hurricane’s sleek lines are a more-than-subtle hint at what the next Wrangler will look like. We hope they keep the articulating fenders as well.

A couple of blasts around the parking lot at Newark New Jersey’s Liberty Park is proof that Hurricane is the real thing. While Chrysler wouldn’t let us drive, the feeling from the passenger seat is still unique. Stand on the throttle and the front end lifts from the massive torque, but with power being sent to the wheels through four independent output shafts, the Hurricane seems to float like a hovercraft, save for the weight of the billet aluminum suspension components.

Granted, the idea of putting Hurricane into production is ludicrous, but the transfer case technology could easily find its way under a future generation Wrangler.

The four-shaft system is the perfect off-road traction-control system. Electronically-controlled, it can sense when any of the four wheels are spinning and send all of the torque to the wheel (or wheels) that have traction.

The four shafts along with four-wheel steering allow for five different steering variations.

Regular front wheel steer; four-wheel steer where the rear wheels turn opposite of the fronts; crab steer, where the rear wheels turn the same way as the fronts; skid steer, where each bank of wheels move forward or reverse, steering the vehicle like a tank; and spin steer, where all four wheels turn inboard at 46 degrees, allowing the vehicle to turn in a circle. All of these maneuvers are designed to allow Hurricane to maneuver its way out of just about anything.

Quigley also sees the potential to license the technology to aftermarket companies to retrofit extreme off-roader vehicles.

Quigley has done some extreme off-roading with Hurricane, though he says it’s too new to risk scratching up the suspension parts. He does plan on running it through the off-road courses at Chrysler’s Chelsea, Mich., proving ground.

And don’t be surprised if the Hurricane name doesn’t show up on a lot of other products as well. Little Tykes is currently working on a battery-powered riding toy designed to look just like Hurricane, without the many steering functions.

Jeep Dakar

“What if we had a four door Wrangler?” Sgalia says this was the thought behind Dakar, Jeeps first exploration into a solid-bodied Wrangler. Designer’s stretched a Wrangler chassis 15-in. to make room for the extra two doors. The Dakar is all Wrangler up to the beltline and all new from the beltline up. Dakar has a new windshield, side glass and an all-steel roof. Is there room for Dakar in the Jeep line-up?

“There’s some potential to do a vehicle like that,” Sgalia says.

Sgalia says that Dakar could serve a segment of the market without “projecting a scorched-earth type of military thing, like a Hummer.”

I can’t see there being a big enough demand for Dakar to make a business case for it, though when Jeep gets its new flexible manufacturing plant in Toledo, Ohio, making variations like these may be easier.

Dakar stays closest to the core of the Jeep brand. It rides and handles like any Wrangler though the closed in cabin takes away most of the reasons that people buy Jeeps and the ride may be bit rougher than most standard SUV owners would like.