This Wagoneer is proof Jeep needs to start restomodding

This, for non-Americans out there, is a Jeep Wagoneer. For the Americans, this is what your (or your best friend’s) family had as a family shuttle back when you were obsessed with Looney Tunes. And there’s no judgement here – Chuck Jones was a bona fide genius.

The Wagoneer’s credited as the world’s first luxury SUV. To certain sections of the community, that’s like saying ‘the Wagoneer really was patient zero’, but that line of reasoning has aged enough to be more tripe than trope these days. Yes, SUVs are popular. No, most people don’t need them. But developed nations have transcended ‘need’ and the populace generally have the opportunity to indulge in ‘want’. And if you’re the sort that looks down on someone for what they want, perhaps try enjoying your life for a change.

Moving on. As you might be able to glean already, given the title of this article, this one’s been restomodded. Brilliantly, we might add.

That’d be Jeep, specifically Mark Allen, Chris Piscitelli and a team of like-minded Jeepers in their employ. But it’d be more accurate to ask ‘who built it?’, because – short of some kind of miracle – Jeep won’t be building any more.

If you’re a keen off-roader (or even a dull one), the list of mods is more of the ‘nod in assent’ sort, rather than ‘shout in bewilderment from the rooftops’. But it’s all exactly what we’d do to our hypothetical classic Jeep wagon, before we left for Utah / Yukon / the Trans-America Trail.

So there’s modern four-link suspension and coil springs from the Wrangler Rubicon, replacing the original leaf setup. Massive 33-inch mud terrain tyres envelop 17-inch steelies, requiring custom flared wheel arches and scalloped wheel wells. Honestly, we’d approve flared wheel arches on a lawnmower, so we’re 100 per cent in for this.

Power-wise, Chrysler’s 5.7-litre Hemi V8 hip bone’s connected to the four-speed auto thigh bone, and the thigh bone’s connected to the Dana 44 knee bones. It’s far from the latest techno-wizardry, but it’s the solid, simple engineering that’ll deposit you in the heart of Moab without stranding you there.

Cosmetically, a grille from a later-year Wagoneer joins flipped and modified bumpers from a Chevy C10 and vintage-perfect Forest Service green paint to create a sort of ‘greatest hits’ version of the Wagoneer. And what a hit.

The interior’s been fully restored but crucially left in vintage spec. So it’s a pressed steel dashboard and all the amenities of a bicycle. That said, there are leather-bound bench seats front and rear and a woven wicker headliner. Sounds as naff as your gran’s rattan, but it works.

Oh lord no. Not in the modern context, anyways. But that’s not what it’s for. That’s like asking if a cruise ship or mobility scooter is quick. They’re not supposed to be, almost by definition. But that Hemi V8 still makes something in the order of 380bhp and 375lb ft, so it’s going to pick up and go in a deeply satisfying way.

This is the real sticking point. Jeep only built one, as a ‘concept car’. But it’s as well built as a production model – or a production Jeep, right guys? – and our own Tom Ford has driven one through Moab. It’s a proper thing, which can do proper off-roading while looking properly magnificent. What exactly is the holdup, fellers?

Here we find another sticking point. As a concept car, the Roadtrip isn’t for sale. Which is utter cobblers. After its debut at Moab, Jeep hoicked it all the way to a biblically wet Austria for the European launch of the new Wrangler a few years back. It sat inside a tent, while a few old Wranglers and an original wartime Willys sat in another. And while there are quite a few cars that are better to look at than drive – the DeLorean springs to mind – the fact remains that cars are made to be driven, regardless of how astounding they are to look at.

We suppose that, as Jeep almost definitely will never restomod old Wagoneers, that your best bet is a call to Jonathan Ward over at Icon, given that he’s already done a bang-up job restomodding another Wagoneer. We’re just captivated by the looks of this one.

We’re in a bit of a ‘live and let live’ mood at the moment – must be all that meditation we planned to do and never got around to – so we’re not going to tell you why you should care about something we care about. If you care, great! You’re among friends here. If you don’t, great! You’re still among friends here. De gustibus non est disputandum – in matters of taste, there can be no dispute.

The perfect aesthetics drew us in, and the absolute absence of need in our lives for anything even approaching the Roadtrip didn’t temper our enthusiasm one iota. We could come up with some flowery prose about how it feels, what it does and what that means, but that’s overegging the pudding. You like it because you do and nothing else is of any consequence.

When the modern 5.7 Hemi came in, the original 3.8-litre straight six was junked. And what’s a man to do with an old engine that he has no intention of fitting to another car?

For those of you who immediately thought ‘Gumtree’ or ‘Craigslist’, stop being so bloody logical for once in your life. Of course you take the original valve cover and make a toolbox out of it, to keep in the capacious cargo bay of your perfect restomod creation.