When Butch Clark's clean, mildly built '84 Scrambler was totaled he did what most of us would do. He used a bad situation as an excuse to upgrade the snot out of his trusty Jeep. Apparently, Butch's Scrambler used to be something of a hot rod in its former life. With V-8 power, no lift, and little tires, the sucker scooted on the street and made one sweet road runner. Ironically, the end of its first life came about with the Jeep strapped to Butch's trailer, when some lady T-boned Butch, sending the Jeep and trailer onto their sides. The Jeep tub, hood, and windshield were pretty much a wash, so after a whole bunch of arguing with insurance companies, Butch finally got a check in the mail and the rebirth began.

Even though this '66 CJ-5 is less costly per-pound than a good steak, Jeff Wood's 5,200-pound Jeep isn't exactly cheap. It is, however, built from easily obtainable wrecking yard parts found in and around Jeff's hometown of Fairacres, New Mexico. From the diesel engine and big rig steering box all the way down to the Rockwell axles, there is plenty of quality beef that hints at the fact that Jeff repairs heavy-duty trucks for a living. Although unlike the trucks at his day job, Jeff claims this Jeep build took a whole year and a trainload of beers to complete.

Hoby Hulbert's '62 Willys Wagon is no showpiece. It likely still sports the same vintage grease and grime it had under the hood 40 years ago. This wagon is a driver and Hoby has constantly upgraded and punished it in the mud pits near his Sylmar, California, home since he got it. It was nearly all-original when he started the build. Nine years of at-home driveway upgrades and $10,000 resulted in the giant Jeep he has today.

We ran into Rex Barker of Salt Lake City, Utah, and his sandstone and teal colored '55 Willys truck on the Moab Rim Trail during the 2008 Easter Jeep Safari.

If someone came up to you and said he built a Grand Cherokee with honkin' tires and Dana 60s to get to a manhole, would you think he'd had one too many sips of the happy juice?

CJ, YJ, TJ.... At some point while building a Jeep we all have probably said, "I love this Jeep but wish it had something from an earlier or later model." You know, just take them all and build the perfect daily driver as well as a killer trail rig that would turn heads. John Hubbard of Oyster Bay, New York, did just that.

As I rolled into the parking lot of the Moab La Quinta for my week-long '08 Easter Jeep Safari stay, I noticed a conspicuously unloaded TJ on a trailer in the parking lot. The next morning as I unloaded the tow rig and did a few last-minute odds and ends to my M-715 in the sleet and snow that was falling, I noticed a guy quietly working away under the TJ. Lying on his back on the cold trailer deck with nothing but the occasional tink of a wrench on steel to accompany him, I absent-mindedly thought, last minute preparations, and then went about my business. But then he was still there after lunch. The crossmember was off and most of the drivetrain was lying beside him. By evening nothing was visible but driveshafts hanging off the diffs. Bummer, that dude is really broken, I thought, and then it was off to a dinner with the guys from Jeep and Mopar Performance.

As our youth cooks away in fluorescent-light-strung offices, we like to hold onto what ignorance we have left and daily drive Jeeps that most people would put on a trailer. But as we age, we're starting to see the benefits of not being the biggest state-trooper target on the freeway. It gets old spending at least one morning per week explaining to an officer that what we're driving is actually street legal, and we slowly start to yearn for something that maybe couldn't make it through the hammers. The idea of splitting our needs between a strict wheeling Jeep and a second daily driver that can handle our crazy driving is getting mighty attractive.

If you've never had a chance to get out and do some serious snow wheeling- like pushing your Jeep through 3-foot snow fields with 5- to 6-foot drifts using only your engine, your driving skills, and plenty of go pedal-then you've never lived.

I have to admit that I didn't love Jeeps for a long time. In fact, I actually disliked them. To me, a Jeep took the hardest part of driving a trail out of the equation -- fitting a square peg through a round hole. In my mind, if you could easily fit your 4x4 through a trail, then why bother? It was only with some years of maturity and several dozen dents to the sheetmetal of my fullsize that I came to see the wisdom and enjoyment in wheeling a smaller, more nimble vehicle.

It's that time of year again-when Uncle Sam reaches into your pocket to take even more of your Jeep money. Or if you're like most Americans, he reaches into his bottomless britches and pays you instead! Last year the average tax refund was $2,183. It was surely meant to upgrade your Jeep! If we had the opportunity to steal your wallet and your Jeep for a couple days, here's how each of the Jp editors would spend your money modifying it.

When we first saw Robert Carmichael's Scrambler we thought it "sure was a purty Jeep," but we never really thought he'd take such a pretty Jeep wheeling. Then we got to talking to him and found out that, while it is pretty, he's had his share of damage to it while out wheeling and has simply repaired it so it doesn't look like the normal clapped-out wheeling rig.

It's no secret that some of our favorite daily drivers are the '99-'04 WJ Grand Cherokees. And now with prices on decent used vehicles dipping below $5,000, it's almost criminal how inexpensive it is to roll in all-wheel-drive comfort.

I'd like to compliment you on your magazine. I've been a reader for a few years now and always anticipate the call from the newsstand telling me the new issue is here. I gotta tell ya, I really like the fact that, on the November '07 cover, there was a pic of a woman obviously having a ball driving an old Jeep, and yet there were a couple of cheesecake shots of babes in bathing suits further back in the issue. Also, I never had a problem with the Bree column. You guys should do a story on gals who pilot their own rigs off-road and include action shot-not just poses. And what about an "old geezer article?" I also like the off-beat humor andthe fact that no one seems to be afraid to laugh at him or herself. As I rocket toward the age of 50, and as a lover of the older Jeeps (newest owned is an '81 CJ-7, oldest being a '58 Jeep pickup), I still appreciate the variety of what's out there these days, and you guys seem to keep my interest up pretty consistently. Keep up the good work.
Dave Ferreira
Via e-mail

I'm gonna admit something that will come as no shock to anybody who has met me. I'm not too fond of hippies. There's something about the scent of Patchouli oil, bong water, and Birkenstock leather that gets me frothing. I think "hippie tetherball" would be a perfectly acceptable pastime and that it should be illegal to wear wool socks with open-toed footwear.

It seems that whenever we set out to build something big, we end up encountering some kind of stumbling block-we can't get a big motor, or the giant axles we had lined up fell through, or the 40-inch tires we thought would fit did nothing but rub the body while crossing an intersection.

The CJ-5 has the distinct honor of being a vehicle that was hard to kill off. It came in 1954 and left in 1984, equaling the longest production run of note (and before you send letters to us, know that those are Jeep's defined production dates, so we're sticking to 'em, but we'll grant you the '55 model year). The push was that the Universal Jeep was truly universal--stick it in agriculture, public service, transportation, communications, industry, and it would do the job--from street sweeping to "acting as a public address vehicle" because it was "the world's most useful vehicle." Hey, if it was good enough to rid the roads of trash and Bob's Big Boy wrappers, it was good enough for public consumption.

I believe the bone strapped to the front bumper on andrew's Oct. '07 cover Jeep is a pelvic bone, which may belong to a deer.

Freddy Benson
Via e-mail

It's no secret we like older Jeeps, and we have a hard time not buying any old Jeep with a price tag under $1,000. To be honest, most of the stuff we bring home is a pile of junk in need of lots of repair and attention. Well, over the years we've accumulated a pretty extensive black book filled with places to get those hard-to-find parts for older Jeeps

Now that we've spent previous editions of Jeep Autopsy dissecting production Jeeps, how about a flashback to the concept side? You may recall some of these in greater detail from our Sept. '05 article, "12 Worst Jeep Concepts Ever," and we can guarantee those headliners haven't improved with age-some still resemble a villain from Dick Tracy rather than anything you'll find one day on the trail. Chrysler is festing "20 Years of Modern Concept Vehicles" this year (part of its "Daimler Who?" campaign, we guess), and there have been some truly spectacular Jeep creations to toast-the ones we highlight in this story.

Once we're done wrapping up the last magazine of the year, each Jp editor sits down and thumbs through all 10 issues to pick his 10 favorite Jeeps. This year, aside from the project vehicles owned by the staff members, the field was open to any Jeep that appeared anywhere in the pages of Jp.

If you've decided to build for off-road adventures and leave extreme wheeling in monster boulders and bottomless bogs to the purpose-built buggies and pond trucks, then you've come to the right place. Think "everything in moderation." First and foremost, a trail rig needs to be reliable or at least self-sufficient. Ultimately, building a stout, reliable Jeep is easier than carrying a spare for every component on your rig. Your trail/adventure Jeep should be built to conquer mud, rocks, dirt, sand, logs, and anything else that may get in your path--even the street. Aside from keeping a full set of tools, recovery gear, and supplies in your adventure Jeep, these are the top spots that need some attention.

If you ever jumped on one of those "too good to pass up deals," you aren't alone. There are plenty of us who buy a Jeep at a great price only to find out that it's 2,000 miles away, we've got no trailer, and it's got no engine, so we can't even drive it. Heck, if you've been reading Jp for a while, you've seen Hazel making the $1,000 impulse buy and then dragging Cappa 1,000 miles to get another Jeep.In this case, it was a bit different. I quit my old job almost two months before moving from New Jersey to California. The goal was to get my '67 M-715 road worthy and drive it across country. Well, 40 some-odd days of wrenching later, I had to admit it probably wasn't going to happen. Basically, as soon as I got to California I started investigating shipping options for my truck.

Do you think the mullet was the greatest hairstyle ever invented? Does part of your standard weekend attire consist of a foam-dome beer helmet and a pair of cut-off jean shorts? Do you pull your color-banded white tube socks all the way up to the bottom of your knees? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then pay close attention because your Jeep is probably in violation of several of these general Jeep rules of taste.

When you have a leased truck on your hands and you decide to cut it up to lay body over a set of 24s, you better make damn sure it's going to be done right. Luckily for Eric Rankins, this build was just up his alley. You see, he is the lead fabricator at Ekstensive Metalworks and is definitely no stranger when it comes to building an insane project like this one. Even though he's used to the idea of radically modifying a brand-new vehicle, it is still mind-boggling to the rest of us. There is always that voice in the back of your head that will question if you can accomplish this monumental task, and if you mess up, how will you explain to everyone that you screwed up a perfectly new vehicle?