Let’s Dig a Little Deeper Into the 707-HP Trailcat
If you think you knew everything about the 707-horsepower Jeep Trailcat concept, think again.
A recent interview with Jeep Mopar head, Joe Dehner, revealed there’s a lot more to the 707-horsepower off-roader than what we learned when it was first revealed at the Easter Jeep Safari earlier this year.
Take, for instance, how quickly the team had to pull the project together to get it ready for the 50th annual Easter Jeep Safari in Moab.
“It was really aggressive because the Easter Jeep Safari is centered on the Jeep holiday, and it came early this year,” says Dehner. “We have an ideal timeline we like to work within, but we didn’t get approval for these designs until about the first week in December. So the torch didn’t hit the metal until New Year’s. So we had about three months to make it all happen.”
THE TEMPTATION WAS HARD TO RESIST
Dehner’s team, however, actually started toying with the idea around the same time the Dodge Challenger Hellcats were launched, which is what sparked an interest in building the Trailcat. After all, with a 707-horsepower engine on hand, who wouldn’t be intrigued about the out-of-the-box idea of fitting one in a Jeep?
“We had acquired an engine, and we had a Wrangler two-door, and we decided at that point, maybe it’s too soon. So we put it on ice, and then we decided this was the year to do it,” explains Dehner.
WHAT ABOUT THE COLOR?
Even coming up with a color name for the Trailcat was a little non-traditional. Well, sort of.
“We had neutral tones, and in the 11th hour what we settled on was a Sublime Green-inspired color we call ‘Helen Green,’” he says. “It’s an old sixties joke where somebody says, ‘You look like Helen Green,’ and the woman replies, ‘Well, you should see what I look like in pink.’”
Naming the vehicle itself? Well, that was pretty much a given considering it drew a lot of inspiration from old-school American muscle cars.
“No one would ever confuse a Wrangler with a muscle car. But given how it had a heart transplant with a Hellcat engine, that’s how we came up with the name Trailcat,” says Dehner.
COULD IT SHARE SOME IDEAS WITH THE TRACKHAWK?
Of course, the looming question is whether some of the engineering that went into creating the Trailcat could wind up in the much-anticipated 707-horsepower Grand Cherokee Trackhawk.
Dehner would neither confirm nor deny Jeep is actually developing the much-buzzed-about, Hellcat-powered Jeep. No big surprise there, given how tight-lipped auto execs tend to be before a vehicle’s official debut. But he did note that many of the parts on the Trailcat, like the hood, are already available at Jeep dealerships through Mopar.
“We added vents for cooling purposes, but you can buy that same basic hood from Mopar today,” he says.
Mopar also offers wheels similar to the ones on the Trailcat. “These are more conceptual, but that could turn into a production part,” says Dehner. So in short, I guess that would be a “yes” to our original question.
Adds Dehner: “Whether it’s a more simple form or slightly modified, [this represents] a lot of pieces and parts that somebody could do on their own, and make a clone of the vehicle.”
HOW ABOUT A PRODUCTION TRAILCAT?
That said, the bigger question might be — despite how far-fetched it might seem now — is whether we could ever see a 707-horsepower Wrangler go into production.
“I’m hoping it might influence something down the road because if you go to Moab, you see a lot of highly modified Jeeps. They are all crawlers, high-lift, large tires, and they are designed for that terrain,” says Dehner.
He adds: “We haven’t in recent memory done something this extreme with Jeep. Is Trailcat the answer? It could be. Could it influence something down the road? I hope so.”
Our guess is that most here at JK-Forum hope so as well.