His name is Trevor Webb, and he’s either a madman or a genius, depending upon whether you see his ridiculous creation as the most abominable Jeep Wrangler of all time or the most fuel-efficient one. Here’s how — and more importantly, why — this Minnesota-based precious metal dealer built a Jeep Wrangler TJ on a Toyota Prius unibody.
Before I get into my interview with Webb, let’s just look at this thing for a moment, because it’s a bit hard to fathom what the heck is going on. Listed on Facebook Marketplace as a “1997 Jeep wrangler S Sport Utility” with 254,000 miles on the clock, the listing’s description reads:
Started life as a 05 Prius and we cut the body off the chassis, started adding a 97 wrangler tub into it, it’s a full out Prius with the outer sheet metal of a jeep. I’d recommend shorter diameter tires, there’s a lot of lights on the dash because of so many sensors disconnected. Will trade for a 540 PTO cat 1 3 point sickle mower, hay wagon, other farm equipment.
Upon reading this, my mind melted into a pink foamy goo — not unlike a McDonald’s chicken nugget.
What do you mean you “started adding a 97 Wrangler tub into [an 05 Prius]”? That does not compute. The Prius has a unibody, and the Jeep is body-on-frame. To learn more, I reached out to Webb.
“Started with a free car and a cheap Jeep tub,” the off-road Jeep tinkerer told me. “Never got [a] title for the car after two years, so we began to process ways to use it, ran too good to part it out.”
So there was a Jeep tub and a nice-running Prius with no title. Honestly, I get it now; Webb had pretty much no choice but to build this contraption!
“I had moved some vehicles around at my place and they were side x side, then the idea came to me, I have a titled Jeep tub, a good running car with no title, here I sit watching everyone unibody swapping all kinds of stuff, so I thought hey, what a fun day, get some buddies together and build something out of our normal jeeps for rock crawling.”
That’s a heck of an undertaking, but Webb has a pole barn with a hoist, fabricating skills, and some buddies — so he figured he could pull it off.
“So I set the date, bought some meat for the smoker, a few beers, and started cutting it apart. We spent a full day cutting it apart, mocking up pieces, and spent the next two weeks making it what it is an hour or two every night after work putting around welding, removing, re-welding,” he told me over Facebook Messenger. “The tub was cut into 5 pieces basically and started hanging the parts around the car to retrofit it. I’d still say nothing is 100% done, but it’s fun to drive, gets lotsa laughs and looks.”
What’s great is that this whole project basically cost Webb nothing but time. “By the time I sold parts of value, it paid for the tub of Jeep, plus a few hundred bucks even after title transfer, so I haven’t really got. Much into it so to speak.”
As for fuel economy, Webb told me the Jeeprius gets “27-30 cruising highway,” and that if one were to put smaller tires on, he bets it “would be back to 40’s.”
Webb admits that he doesn’t have the “proper tools” to do a “quality build,” but it was all in good fun. “This started as a joke,” he told me, “then went into silly mode once the boys got involved, it took the whole day before anyone really saw my vision.”
“We are LS swapping into another Prius I’ve got soon here. Happen to have a spare 6.0, 4l80e & a narrowed 9” just sitting here.” Oh boy. I’m not sure if I’m more worried about the structural integrity of an LS-powered Prius or that of this hacked-up, roofless Jeeprius. All I know is, this is some of the finest Sawzall-engineering I’ve ever seen.
The guiding principles for the build team:
1. Hammer to fit, paint to match. Or, just skip the paint.
2. If at first you don’t succeed, get a bigger hammer.
3. A grinder and paint make the welder I ain’t.
COTD!
I should be so lucky!
I’m good with the curated COTD, but we need another one for the most up voted comment. Did my part and gave you a smiley!
That feels like it could be a very easy thing for the team to implement. If they don’t have the ability to sort by upvotes, it would probably be trivial to implement.
Cut once, measure never, grind hammer, and weld until it fits.
If it don’t fit, it will.
Brute force and ignorance works every time, two thirds of the time.
And when it doesn’t work, it wasn’t worth saving anyway!
Some genius wrote an article and didn’t over represent the intelligence of the builder!
Dropping a Prius drivetrain into a Jeep chassis would be cool.
This is just a hack job.
Sorry to say… but this thing looks janky and stupid and is at best, half-finished.
Maybe I’m just a boring person.
Agree that it looks like a transporter accident from Star Trek, but I don’t hate it. It was made as a “what the hell” project to salvage two undrivable cars into one.
I see it as no worse than wrecking a beater at LeMons, but in addition to the fun, I bet they learned new skills and got a driving monstrosity out of it.
Stellantis, take note. There’s a modern day Jeepster in there somewhere.
You know if he’s not doing the math to account for how the odometer reads differently due to tire size, his mileage might be better than he is thinking. If the odometer is still expecting a 26″ tire (or whatever) and he is running a taller tire, then the odometer will underestimate his miles traveled. So while I’m sure there is a fuel economy cost, it might not be as severe as suggested.
Excellent. This should be someone’s daily.
Let’s kill it. I’ll bring the fire.
Excellent!! This is exactly the kind of completely deranged content I come here for.
Finally the VanGuy-David Tracy crossover we’ve been asking for!
Pssh. I’m glad this exists but I hope I’m never in the same zip code as it is.
Is this the definition of “janky?”
It’s insane, and I love it. Not sure I’d be willing to go very fast in it though.
“For sale: 30+ mpg Wrangler without the pesky recalls.”
How are you going to be able to smell your own farts in that? It makes no sense.
This thing looks like it came out of some factory in Asia after a group of people responsible looked at pictures of jeeps and decided to build one. I like it, it’s weird and has a heart that’s hard to kill.
with just the letters from “Jeep Wrangler” and “Toyota Prius” together you can spell “Generator Autopsy” which seems appropriate
you could also spell “poo pee wingler” which may be better or worse
I go with Joyota Pringler.
Or Autopsy Generator if you decide to drive this thing on a highway.
The Wrongler! Seems like a good time was had so no complaints here.
Exactly. I hate it as an actual vehicle but I love the story.
I’m sure it was fun to do (especially w/BBQ and beer as project fuel) but I wouldn’t want to own/drive the resulting Jeep/Prius. The (semi?)finished result looks less than great (still way better than I’m sure I could accomplish w/my pals) so I’m not all that sure what it’s good for. It’d be a lot more work, but if he had actually managed to just put all of the Prius drivetrain INTO an otherwise intact Jeep, at least the result would look like a real Jeep. Of course it wouldn’t be 4WD anymore, or be strong enough for Jeep stuff, but at least you could drive it around town looking like a Jeep and get way better MPG than any Jeep ever dreamed of.
Still, I’m sure it was a heckuva lot of work and though the result looks like something Dr. Frankenstein got up to when he was just a kid, it’s still impressive in its own way.
There once was a Prius-slash-Jeep.
It wasn’t well built but was cheap.
Upon the Prius’ body
Jeep parts were hung rather shoddy.
If you took it to Moab they’d weep.
Is it a Pringler or a Wrangus?
You stuck your pringler in my wrangus!
Get your wrangus away from my pringler!
♫ 2 great tastes that taste great together ♫
Hold.
My.
Beer.
Exactly.
I don’t know. The result looks more like a “hold my whiskey” job.
I like this. I’d love it in a more finished state. but definitely appreciate it as it sits (rolls).
*Sees listing*: “A Wrangled with 254k miles in minesota that’s still on the road? Impossible, it should have rusted out and broken beyond repair at least 100k miles prior!”
*Reads Listing*: “Oh, it’s a prius… sorta, that explains the mileage”
So, it’s a cheap thing … and I wouldn’t understand?
Gold.
Don’t feel bad. I don’t understand it either.
Priorities! 😀
Something about the proportions… it looks like an embiggened Mini Moke.
It exists, but not because it wants to.
The exact opposite of “It insists upon itself”
Kind of like the Brundle Fly.
I imagine it muttering “kill me … kill me” to passers-by in the 7-Eleven parking lot.