The Rubicon name is now essential to the Jeep brand, and it just passed a huge milestone.
Today, step onto any Jeep dealer lot across the country and you’ll see Wrangler Rubicon SUVs and Gladiator Rubicon trucks everywhere. It is the hotness among off-roaders, and the brand has a new testament to that fact: It just crossed the 1 million sales mark. Jeep announced the official statistic Wednesday, touting up the most capable off-roader in its stable since the original TJ Rubicon broke onto the scene in 2003. And while that is definitely a milestone to celebrate, it’s also important to note that it took a seriously dedicated group of enthusiasts within the company to get Rubicon off the ground at all.
If you want a clue to the Wrangler Rubicon’s scrapper beginnings, you need look no farther than Jeep’s own statement. “Twenty years ago, a small group of enthusiastic Jeep engineers, affectionately known as the ‘Lunatic Fringe’, with grit, determination and their personal credit cards, set out to design, engineer and develop the most capable Wrangler ever.”
As much as the million-Rubicon milestone evokes warm fuzzies today and is great for a marketing pitch, the key words that stand out there are “their personal credit cards“. Of the thousands of engineers who worked at Chrysler throughout the 1990s and into the 2000s, only that a dedicated few were hardcore off-road enthusiasts. The Lunatic Fringe, as they were, couldn’t convince the top brass or the beancounters at the time that creating a super-capable Jeep beyond what already existed was a viable business option.
All the meetings, all the donuts and all the PowerPoint presentations were going to change the minds of those making the decisions, so the only way to make it happen was to build a more hardcore TJ that worked, and show everyone that it works. Two of the dedicated engineering team that put the Rubicon in motion, using their own money remember, were Dave Yegge and Mike Gabriel. After adding a host of aftermarket parts and taking the TJ onto the Rubicon Trail with executives and senior managers for two years, and only then were people convinced a more capable Jeep Wrangler was not only possible, but a good idea.
Of course, the Jeep Wrangler Rubicon debuted in 2003 in a production capacity, and it’s been a staple of the TJ, JK and JL lineups ever since. Today, the package adds in front and rear locking differentials, a Rock-Trac 4:1 transfer case, weapons-grade underbody protection and available options out the wazoo, like steel bumpers, a Warn winch and up to 37-inch tires.
So while Jeep celebrates a huge milestone for the Rubicon models (and yes, well done them for keeping it going), let’s give a proper shoutout both to the Jeep community who bought Rubicons in droves, and to the Lunatic Fringe for having the know-how, dedication and intuition to see the opening for an off-road SUV market that is nothing short of explosively popular today.
