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2015 Easter Jeep Safari Concepts First Drive

Imagine if once a year your grandmother made a chocolate cake. Not a chocolate cake, that chocolate cake. Blow-your-mind chocolate cake. But she won't ever let you have any – you can only have the spatula and whatever's left over in the mixing bowl. And you don't care. You look forward to that spatula and bowl every year because – "Gadzooks!" – that is some stupendous cake. For us, that cake is the Easter Jeep Safari. An annual pilgrimage to Moab, Utah for a taste of what Fiat-Chrysler's off-road brand has cooked up in its Design Dome. "No, you can't have any," the company tells us, "but you can taste it here, then dream about it until next Easter." In Detroit, Jeep gave us a close look at the seven concepts it built for this year's 49th annual event. Then it went a step further and took those show cars to Mill Canyon, UT, to crawl the red rocks in Jeep's natural habitat. After all, the company calls Moab, "Our home away from home." And it's not true that we never get more than a taste of Jeep's conceptual goodness – 2011's JK8 pickup conversion kit is a slice of Safari creation we can now take home, for instance, as are the hood decals that adorned two of the concepts we drove this year. Pietro Gorlier, President and CEO of Mopar, told us that the evolution of Jeep Performance Parts came from listening to journalists and customers in his first year on the job in 2010. So there's that. But still, we want more cake. Like a full-on production Wrangler Africa. These being one-of-a-kind prototypes traipsing through a canyon of nearly immovable objects, we didn't go fast, we didn't go far, we didn't push hard. But we did drive all the Easter Jeeps, and even just this small taste was outstanding. View 30 Photos Jeep Chief While we listened attentively to the detailed spiels on all this conceptual candy, one question ran through our minds: "How am I going to get in the Chief before everyone else?" And we could see the same thought every colleague's face, those scheming bastards. And why not? The Ocean Blue tribute to the venerable Cherokee of old grabbed everyone's attention since the first teaser images weeks before the event, in part because the vintage truck is up there with mermaids for rarity and lustworthiness. Anything that goes this far in obeisance to that classic Jeep is always going to score huge marks. The Chief is a four-door Wrangler underneath, but in many ways it feels nothing like a Wrangler.

Jeep does Renegade Chinese-style with Zi You Xia design concept

As we mentioned, Jeep is bringing a quartet of concepts to the Beijing Motor Show this year. Its largest model, the Grand Cherokee, is nowhere to be found, but its smallest is. That, of course, would be the new Renegade, which has been done up as the Zi You Xia design concept.
Taking its name from the Mandarin word (or words) for "rebel," the Zi You Xia takes its inspiration from the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Beijing, with a Warm Chocolate Gray paintjob with contrasting dark bronze trim. The roof, grille and mirror caps are color-keyed to match the rest of the exterior, riding on 20-inch alloys in the same dark bronze finish.
Inside it's all Piano Black, Anodized Copper and brown leather with plaid fabric inserts. Scope it out in the high-res image gallery above and the press release below.

Chrysler Recalls Jeep SUVs For Ignition Switches

The ignition switch defects that engulfed General Motors are now a rapidly growing problem at Chrysler. Chrysler said Tuesday it is recalling up to 792,300 older Jeep SUVs worldwide because the ignition switches could fall out of the "run" position, shutting off the engine and disabling air bags as well as power-assisted steering and braking. That's the same problem that has forced GM to recall more than 15 million cars over the last six months. Chrysler's recall covers 2005-2007 Grand Cherokees and 2006-2007 Commanders. The company said it is not sure exactly how many will be recalled, but said it will notify customers by mid-September. Chrysler said an outside force such as a driver's knee can knock switches out of the "run" position. Engineers are working on a fix. The Auburn Hills, Michigan-based automaker, now part of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV, said it knows of no related injuries and only one accident. But it said owners should keep clearance between their knees and keys until repairs are made. Chrysler has now recalled more than 1.7 million vehicles for ignition-switch problems. In June, the company added 696,000 minivans and SUVs to a 2011 recall to fix faulty ignition switches. Those recalls covered Dodge Journey SUVs and Chrysler Town & Country, Dodge Caravan and Volkswagen Routan minivans - which Chrysler made for the German automaker - from the 2007 to 2010 model years. Tuesday's recall is the outgrowth of two investigations opened by U.S. safety regulators last month as part of a broader probe into ignition-switch and air-bag problems across the auto industry. The agency wouldn't say Tuesday whether its investigation could lead to recalls at other automakers. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said in June that it was investigating Jeep Commanders and Grand Cherokees after getting 32 complaints that a driver's knee can hit the key fob or key chain, causing the ignition switch to move out of position. The federal investigation is still open. The agency said Tuesday that it is requesting additional information from Chrysler to ensure that its repairs will be effective. The investigations and recalls come after GM bungled an ignition-switch recall of older small cars. GM acknowledged that it knew of the ignition problem for more than a decade but failed to recall the cars until earlier this year, when it recalled 2.6 million small cars such as the Chevrolet Cobalt.