Earlier this week I got to check out the lineup of customized Jeep vehicles which will make their formal debut next month at the 2017 Easter Jeep Safari in Moab, and I am completely smitten with the incredible Quick Sand Concept shown here – packing Hemi power into a customized 2-door Wrangler.
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Each year, the Jeep brand hosts the Easter Jeep Safari in Moab, Utah. The Easter Jeep Safari is a massive off-roading event for Jeep owners from around the world, with the treacherous terrain of Utah providing a perfect playground for the hordes of attendees looking to push their SUVs to their ultimate limits. To sweeten the deal for enthusiasts, the Jeep brand routinely introduces a collection of new concept vehicles at Moab, and although the Easter Jeep Safari doesn’t kick off until April 8th – we got to check out this year’s new Moab concepts today at the FCA headquarters.
All of the concept vehicles headed to the 2017 Moab Easter Jeep Safari are cool in their own right, but the Quick Sand Concept – which was teased by FCA earlier this week – might just be my favorite Moab Jeep Concept ever.
The Jeep Quick Sand Concept
As you can see in the image above, the Jeep Quick Sand Concept is (loosely) based on the 2-door Jeep Wrangler, but shy of the chassis, I don’t believe that there are any actual Wrangler parts on this beautiful sand racer.
The wheelbase of this customized Jeep is longer than a standard production 2-door Wrangler and the track is wider in the front and rear, providing plenty of space for the custom wheels wrapped in big, beefy off-road tires – the first ever on a Jeep concept with staggered sizes in the front and rear. The body is shortened in the front and rear while both the windshield and hardtop have been chopped to give this Jeep an old school hot rod feel. The team also crafted the unique flip-forward hood with a big opening in the center for the Hillborn-style injection to show itself to the world.
That striking injection setup feed a 392 cubic inch Hemi crate engine which has been fitted to a unique set of exhaust headers that vent behind the front wheels, but there is also another set of pipes coming off of the headers which heads to mufflers and a full exhaust system. With the flip of a button, the driver can choose to have the open headers roaring or a more muffled tone, and you can hear the function of this dual exhaust setup in the video below. Of course, since it is an off-road vehicle, that monster Mopar V8 works with a high performance front and rear coil-over exhaust system, a set of heavy duty axles and high performance brakes.(More on Page 2)
On the inside, the Jeep Quick Sand has a set of low-back custom leather seats, a customized 2017 Wrangler dash with accessory switches, a fuel cell with twin filler necks, a roll cage and a manual shift handle with a tiny Jeep in the shift knob.
Finally, the build team for the Jeep Quick Sand added an old style fuel tank up front, except it is actually the case for a Warn winch, while the parachute out back is actually a case for the emergency tow strap.
The Jeep Quick Sand Concept is designed to do exactly what the name suggests – going quick in the sand. While this beautiful SUV will likely hold its own in any off-road setting, this is a Jeep built for high speed in deep sand, and I just absolutely love it everything about it.
This customized Jeep is a work of high performance art, applying hot rod styling cues to an off-road vehicle, resulting in what I believe is my favorite Jeep Moab Concept in my years in the Mopar community. When the company teased this Jeep last week, I saw the headers and what appears to be a V8 engine, at which point I guessed that it might have a supercharged Hellcat Hemi. It “only” has the 392 Hemi, but with roughly 500 horsepower – this has got to be one crazy-quick Jeep on any surface.
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