Jeep teases V8 Wrangler to steal Bronco's thunder

Monday, 13 July 2020

Jeep has toyed with V8 Wranglers before with its annual Easter Safari concepts, like the awesome Quicksand concept from 2017.

A day before Ford officially reveals the new Bronco and a mere hours after its face was leaked online at the Bronco6G.com blog, Jeep has upped the game by teasing a V8-powered version of the Wrangler and/or Gladiator.

Jeep quietly tweeted the purposefully-blurry image that clearly shows a Wrangler/Gladiator bonnet with a noticeable bulge and the numbers 392 etched on it.

For those aware of Chrysler nomenclature, the 392 refers to the mighty 392 cubic inch (or 6.4-litres in our part of the world) Hemi V8 that does duty in a number of its products, including the Dodge Challenger and Charger, as well as the Jeep Grand Cherokee.

It’s blurry on purpose, but you can clearly see that all-important ‘392’ on the bonnet bulge.

Producing 362kW of power and 644Nw of torque in its latest 3rd-generation guise, the Hemi V8 would be a significant power upgrade for either the Wrangler or Gladiator pick up, with the current most powerful engine in the range being the 209kW/347Nm 3.6-litre petrol V6 Pentastar engine.

**READ MORE:

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* First drive review: Jeep Gladiator

* No V8, but a two door Jeep ute is a possibility

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Sadly (or perhaps ‘sanely’), the use of the “392” naming all-but rules out the mad supercharged Hellcat engine that features in cars like the Charger and Challenger Hellcats, the mad Ram Rebel TRX, as well as the mighty Jeep Grand Cherokee Trackhawk.

In the latter guise, it produces a whopping 522kW of power and 868Nm of torque but is a significantly revised engine that is de-stroked to 6.2-litres, or 376 cubic inches…

Probably for the best really, because anyone who really wants a 707hp Wrangler clearly has a death-wish anyway – even Jeep has said that it would be literally too dangerous, with the company’s North America boss, Tim Kuniskis saying that, while the Hellcat engine fits, it would never pass crash tests.

'Everybody always asks me that question: it fits. You know that. It fits like a glove,' Kuniskis said.

'But the problem is that it fits like a glove and there is no air space around the engine and the whole external space of the vehicle so you have no crush space; you have nothing that can be used to absorb energy in a crash.

'It is not a problem to put it in - other than emissions and fuel economy - except it would never pass any crash tests, and that’s a problem.'

While the 392 V8 would have more space (no supercharger and all), it remains to be seen if Jeep is serious about dropping a Hemi into the Wrangler or Gladiator, or if it is just a stunt to draw attention away from the Bronco reveal.