The Rubicon trim almost didn't happen (nearly cancelled)

[tjeeper]

Before the Rubicon model was announced and they were still thinking about it, some friends and I met some of the engineers on a trail ride. They were driving around the country trying out their prototypes and they told us they were weren't sure the upper brass was going to ok it.

We met them at Holy Cross and took them up the trail. Here we were with our "built" TJs- we added gears, lockers, skids, running 35s. These guys show up with couple TJs on 33s, lockers they said were going to be standard from the factory, and a TeraLow (the 241 wasn't made yet) and they were keeping up with us. The whole idea was preposterous. We spent years and thousands of dollars building up our Jeeps and they said you were going to be able to order it directly from the factory. For me that was the beginning of the Rubicon.

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[SoK66]

Having worked for a couple auto manufacturers, when I read their story years ago in one of the Jeep magazines of the day (remember them?) I had a belly laugh. Any product proposal has to run the gauntlet of the bean counters and marketing wags who are basically clueless. That they eventually left and formed AEV is something of a miracle, most guys would have given up and never tried that bold again.