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
I’m a very late to this party:
The years for the face are off: 1956-1986 were the model years, for the CJ-5, CJ-6, CJ-8, and CJ-8
Additionally, there are two cool details that have been forgotten in this article
The grill is also the radiator core support
The JK and JL headlights interchange back to the CJ-5. Aside from the YJ, that is 70 years of backwards compatibility.
Steyr went kind of half-hearted with the slot thing on some of their Pinzgauers.
A British army Steyr-Daimler-Puch – BAE Systems Pinzgauer high-mobility 6×6 6WD 6-wheel drive all-terrain utility vehicle on maneuvers Salisbury Plain Stock Photo – Alamy
He’s the father of the bride at a shotgun wedding.
I absolutely agree this is the best Jeep face. I just want to point out that the last picture you posted, is a CJ-7, not a CJ-5. Jeep got it so right, they used the face on multiple models. The only way I can tell the difference between the 5 and the 7, is the door shape.
Uh-oh. Better not tell D.T. that Jason mixed up a CJ5 and a CJ7. That is a cardinal sin. I would happily trade my CJ5 for a CJ7. I long for adjustable seats.
If I was to get an old CJ, which is the only Jeep that remotely interests me, it would have to be a CJ7. There’s no way my fat ass is driving a CJ5.
Hahaha. The previous owner of my first CJ5 had a bit of a belly so he had to install a smaller steering wheel. Thankfully, he also added power steering. My current CJ5 (I didn’t learn my lesson) doesn’t have power steering so the big wheel makes it a lot easier. I am 6’1″ and about 210 lbs. My right leg starts aching after 30 minutes or so of driving it with how crunched up it has to be to work the throttle. For a while in my 20’s, the CJ was my DD and I got pretty used to it but I am definitely not as spry as I used to be.
I am really tempted to put a smaller steering wheel in my ’74 Buick Apollo (Buicks version of a Chevy Nova). I can and do fit behind the wheel, but my belly does rub against the wheel.
I’m trying to shrink the belly instead 🙂
I completely get what you mean about this design. The way the headlights break into the outermost slots, combined with the chunky rounded fenders, make it look a face with puffy cheeks. This is also my favourite version of the CJ face, by far.
Both the current JL and the much loved TJ generation Wranglers have that same design. The JK chosen as the “modern” example was phased out almost a decade ago.