Two very different things conspired to make me choose to write about this for today’s Cold Start: one was that screenshot from the 1979 horror movie Salem’s Lot that you see up above, and the other thing was the fact that the Easter Jeep Safari just happened, along with our own David Tracy successfully building a brand-new WWII Jeep from eBay parts – more on that, lots more, is coming soon.
What these two things combined made me think about were Jeep faces, and the realization that I have some preferences and thoughts, important thoughts, thoughts about Jeep faces so urgent and dire that I must relay them to you right now!
That’s not entirely true. These are trivial thoughts. But that’s part of my job! Telling you trivial car thoughts! So let’s get into it, and we may as well start by watching the creepy trailer for Salem’s Lot, which shows that 1970s Jeep CJ that got me thinking about all this:
Man, Stephen King really loves bad juju going down in small New England towns. Anyway, think about that Jeep face while you look at the OG Jeep face like the one on David’s WWII Jeep, with its nine-slot grille:
By the way, did you know that iconic Jeep face, that Jeep defends in court so vigorously, was actually designed by Ford? It’s true! I wrote about it years ago for The Old Site; basically, what happened is that the original Willys MB had a front end made up of medal rods, which was labor-intensive to make. Ford had the idea to just stamp the whole face from one piece of sheet metal, and we get the Jeep face we all know:
This face has gone through a lot of different iterations over the years. And I think I just realized that the one I may like best is sort of one of the goofier ones, which may be why I like it. It would be the incredibly long-lived face that started in 1955 and continued all the way to 1983, the CJ-5 face. This one:
I know what I like about it, too: I like the proportions of the headlights, how large they are, and how they break into the outermost slots of that now legally well-protected seven-slot grille. It’s the breaking of the boundaries that gets me; I was a graphic designer for years, and there’s a trick where if you have a frame of some kind, boxy or round or whatever, if you have one of the elements inside the frame break that boundary, it can immediately change a design from looking static and dead to becoming active and alive. Look around, you’ll notice it happening all over the place.
The big headlights also give it a kind of funny bug-eyed look, but I like that, for some reason. I also like the ’70s-era ones that have big, clear turn signal lenses with chrome bezels and with an amber bulb behind them, as opposed to earlier ones with an amber lens. It’s the little details!
The big lights breaking the grille barrier actually started with the first civilian jeeps in the nine-slot era, as you can see in that old ad, as the civilian sealed-beam headlights were larger than the earlier mil-spec ones, but in these early versions, it felt sort of clunky and less intentional than on the CJ-5 redesign.
There’s a lot of interesting Jeep face variants; the DJs, for example, started with a normal seven-slot Jeep face but then moved to a unique five-slot version with no holes for the indicators:
That doesn’t look bad, but I think I prefer when the headlamp intersects with the slots. These, of course, were the faces of postal Jeeps:
Current Jeep face designs abandons any intersections of lights and slots, as you can see:
And while, yeah, this definitely is cleaner, there’s still something about the CJ-5 face that draws me in. It’s not actually more attractive, but there’s a more compelling…something about it? And I do think the key is in the proportion of light size to the overall front end, and, of course, that intersection of elements.
I mean, look at it: can you see what I mean?
…or were you distracted by the dude in the dress shirt, slacks, and vest shooting at something or someone with a shotgun?
The hell are you doing, my man? You don’t dress like that for hunting. Who are you shooting at? Is this one of those Most Dangerous Game kind of situations? A mob hit? Something feels very wrong here.
I’m just going to tell the guy I like his yellow Jeep but also I saw nothing and get the hell out of there.
Top graphic image: CBS
My ‘82 Scrambler is long gone, but I still have a half dozen amber signal bulbs rolling around in the back of my junk drawer.
I like that the “current” jeep face shown last appeared as a 2018 model….. Time really does fly.
Trying to decide if the guy with the gun is Judd Hirsch or Quint from Jaws.
If it’s Judd, he’s shooting at Andy Kaufman.
If it’s Quint, he’s either shooting at a land shark or the kid at the music store he heckled in that deleted scene.
Can we talk about those wheels on the yellow Renegade? Those used to be everywhere, absolutely everywhere. I miss those.
About 15 years ago, stance guys got really into those wheels because they are a super cheap way to get very wide wheels. If you google it, you can find them on slammed Civics and Miatas and BMWs. It was an interesting time.
Most of those were aftermarket, like Diamond Racing Wheels. Most truck wheels have a lug pattern that’s too big for cars.
It’s been a while since I’ve visited their site, but looks like they’ve leaned into that crowd.
https://www.diamondracingwheels.com/
You can still get them, and they even come stock on a bunch of trailers for some reason. I don’t know if they are originally an AMC design, but the fact they come with a red and blue stripe really makes me think so. Think they were referred to as “wagon wheels”.
100%.To me, those are the classic American 4×4 look. Pop em on a K5 Blazer or full size Bronco with some white lettered goodyear offroad tires and bam: 80’s 4×4 goodness.
I love me some white painted wagon wheels.
It’s interesting that the ad above refers to the Willys as a “4-Function Vehicle”.
They came to be “Jeeps” because the military referred to them as “General Purpose” vehicles: GP = Jeep
Seems like a GP vehicle would have more than four functions, but maybe the categorizations were really broad.
The CJ10 had the best Jeep face of all time, and I’m prepared to die on that hill.
I prefer all of these original faces to the super mean mug aftermarket grills that some folks get. The Jeep looks like an evil henchman when they do that.
(Obviously this is my opinion and if you drive an Angry Jeep and you like it, that matters way more than what I think of it.)
It’s a face that I’m going to say is emotionally closest to “dismayed/sad/defeated.” What I see causing it is not just the headlights intersecting with the outer pair of slots, but actually pushing the slot walls inwards while still fully surrounding the lights. It is the same effect as when in a cartoon drawing, they put curved lines between the eyes that resemble a (single or doubled) reversed set of parentheses. Like | o) (o | or | o)) ((o | .
Macgyver drove one of these in the early (read: best) episodes, when he was still with the government and hadn’t yet decamped with Pete to the Phoenix Foundation/acquired his YJ.
IIRC in one of them he uses its receiver, along with a cactus-powered radio and his watch, to locate a pending missile launch.
My favorite is the rectangular headlight YJ front end, but I know I’m the oddball on that. Also not a fan of the frowny face grills that people put on new Jeeps.
I like the rectangular headlights, too.
Glad I’m not the only one.
But living in the rust belt, there are none left around here.
You have company – most here who like ’em do so b/c Jurrasic Park, but a small subset of us know them as Macgyver’s main Jeep!
I love a YJ!
I’m old enough to remember the “Real Jeeps have round headlights” sentiment when the Wranglers came out.
It’s got the eager/weary puppy dog face. Between “What are we getting into!” and “What are we getting into?”
70s guy is color-match dressed with his Jeep. Uniform?
He’s the day shift security guard watching for trademark/copyright thieves. He got promoted from the night shift when he took down those Mahindra guys a few years back.
I agree with this being my favorite, but I think the CJ-10 takes the cake for derpiest.
https://hips.hearstapps.com/mtg-prod/65c3cc0b2d365e0008fe89c9/119165252.jpg
I am fond of the C101 Jeepster Commando grill with the signal lights up and to the fender sides of the slots.
I’m not seeing a tie on our 70’s guy likely shooting some clays with his nice over and under. Or maybe while out surveying his property he kicked up some birds and is going to go pop a couple for dinner. Just a proper 70’s western gentleman