"Turn hard passenger. Ease it up, steady, steady on the throttle. Keep it going, let the Jeep do the work!"
That’s Nena Barlow, multi-time Rebelle Rally champion and professional off-road instructor, guiding me up a particularly hairy climb on Moab’s infamous Hell’s Revenge trail. At least, I think that’s what she’s saying—it’s hard to hear with the blood pumping in my ears.
This isn’t an automaker’s off-road test track, one specifically designed to show off a new model’s prowess while keeping everybody safe in the process. This is legit Utah slickrock, with rubber marks rising and falling along sandstone ridges, often with two-hundred-foot drop-offs on either side. Barlow’s first words of advice? "Look straight ahead. Don’t look down." I take them to heart.
I’m driving a four-door 2025 Jeep Wrangler Willys 4xe with cloth seats. It lacks the disconnectable swaybars, front-facing camera, and locking front differential many other Jeeps on the trail have, but the 4xe hybrid still has no problem climbing, crawling, and crunching along the trail in near-silence—punctuated only by metallic thuds and pings as I clumsily bang the Jeep’s armor-plated belly on rock ledges. I lose track of how many times this happens; Barlow assures me that at crawling speeds, I’m not doing any harm. Still, I’m squeamish about damaging the $62,520 Wrangler.
At this point, I should admit: I’ve never been a fan of the Jeep Wrangler. As cars, they’re primitive, often expensive (see: $62,520 for cloth seats), and require constant steering corrections just to drive straight at highway speeds.
And that’s the point, apparently. Jeep owners, I thought, were mall-crawling bro-dozers willing to put up with awful driving dynamics, bare-bones interiors, and a steering phenomenon called "death wobble" in order to park atop snowbanks at Wal-Mart. As the saying goes, it’s a Jeep thing. I didn’t understand.
Enter Moab.
An adventurous town of 5,000 full-time residents, hemmed in by two national parks, Moab is a world-class destination for hiking, mountain biking, and taking pretty Instagram pictures of rocks. But every Easter weekend, its population quintuples as roughly 20,000 Jeeps descend from across the continent. On the Hell’s Revenge loop alone, I saw license plates from as far away as Vermont, Minnesota, and British Columbia.
Moab is as central to Jeep’s identity as perhaps any other place, including the beaches of Normandy and Stellantis’ world headquarters in Auburn Hills, Michigan. Red Rock 4x4 Club has organized the core Easter Jeep Safari event for 59 straight years, and each year for the past two decades or so, Jeep corporate tricks out drivable concept cars for the event. But it’s more than a party or a car show. Jeep brings its vehicles and accessories here for trail testing, as well as gathers customer feedback.
It’s here, out on the trail, where I start to understand why the Jeep is such a beloved icon.
Dozens, perhaps hundreds, of brightly painted Jeeps pass our slow-moving convoy, giving waves of appreciation as we pull over to let them by. The builds are deeply individual, and several even have names stickered on hoods and windows. Plenty of folks brought the family—kids and dogs range in mood from tail-wagging enthusiasm to utter exhaustion. But out here, everyone is family. Tools, snacks, and stories flow back and forth, and the audience on Hell’s Gate’s “Hecklers’ Hill” cheer for each Jeep (and even a daring Bronco) that makes the climb.
It’s easy to be cynical about all this. An event that centers around the ownership of an expensive, limited-purpose vehicle is inherently exclusive. And Jeep brought me to its flagship cultural event in hopes I’d walk away with a positive opinion of its brand. But perhaps more than any other car event I’ve taken part in, Easter Jeep Safari seems to transcend materialism in search of something greater: Genuine community rooted in shared experience.
There are night trail rides to stargazing spots and sunset campground barbecues. With the picturesque cliffs of Moab as a backdrop, there’s a lot of just hanging out to enjoy. Given our intensely work-focused culture, I get why people come back here year after year, just to disconnect for a few days with friends. There’s also a lot less bench racing and stat-sheet obsession than I’ve observed in the sports car scene. The only metric that matters here is “did you make it up the hill?” And really, all these Jeeps are capable enough to answer affirmatively.
Jeep let us off-road its hand-built concept cars on a short loop trail, which tells you everything you need to know. What other automaker would assemble a group of journalists, toss them the keys to a fleet of unproven cars, point at a rock ledge and say, “Have at it?”
Eyebrow-raising name aside, I loved the J6 Honcho, a two-door pickup with a six-foot bed. It looks like a shortened Gladiator, but in reality, it rides on a four-door Wrangler platform. But my favorite was the Bug Out, a stripped-down Gladiator 4xe outfitted with power banks and a hammock for ultralight camping. Overlanding builds typically pack everything and the kitchen sink, and a lightweight camper with everything you need and nothing you don’t is a statement on leaving no trace.
The more I drove the production Jeeps, the more I liked them, too. From the full-bore roar of the Wrangler 392 to the near-silent rock crawling of the 4xe, each variant had its own distinct charm and personality. In a world of homogenous, interchangeable crossover blobs, a Wrangler says its owner is adventurous, proud, and maybe a little stubborn. Who doesn’t, on some level, want their car to make a statement about them?
In recent years, Jeep has leaned into its military heritage to an extent that I would call "cringe." But with concepts like the Bug Out, Jeep proves it can look forward to a more hopeful America, not just wistfully back. Forget the "angry Jeep eyes;" the Wrangler is a deeply optimistic vehicle, and one we need right now.
In many ways, the Wrangler represents an America we collectively no longer believe in, and that’s a shame. No, it’s not a particularly good car, at least if your daily commute consists of highways rather than mud bogs. But I respect its capability and commitment to what it stands for. So I won’t roll my eyes when I see a Jeep trundling along at 50 on the highway (as long as it’s in the right lane). I won’t groan about inefficiency, loose steering, or a lack of amenities.
There are many 4x4s, but only one Jeep, for better and for worse. And I finally understand why.
