The Jeep Wrangler is one of those all-time classic vehicle designs. Like the Porsche 911 and the Mini, it’s easy to spot one at a glance, no matter what year, model, or generation. Wranglers even remain recognizable when you do crazy things like chop them up and make them super narrow, or very, very wide indeed.
You might have seen this particularly slim Jeep doing the rounds on various social networks this week. From what we’ve determined, the source of the video is one Mohambed Saber—who goes by @saberdrives on Instagram. The footage was posted a few days ago, and shows a heavily—modified Wrangler driving slowly on dirt—because this wild thing actually runs and drives. It looks to be roughly half as wide as a factory model, and wears a Moroccan numberplate which I can’t type here because the Arabic characters are being weird.
The slender Jeep is so visually captivating that pictures of it show up all over the Internet. The only problem is the vast majority of posts out there have vanishingly little information. Most are just reposts of reposts which say “hey, look at the Jp Wrnglr!” or something along those lines. Regardless, I did find a few tidbits of interesting information.
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Following the initial lead, I found Saber also runs a YouTube channel by the same name as his Instagram account. On there, he uploaded a video tour of the Morocco National Auto Museum back in 2021—and in 4K, to boot! Sadly, Saber and I don’t speak the same language, and YouTube’s automatic translation is largely unintelligible. This makes it difficult to glean much further info from the footage.
What we do learn is that the Jeep lives at the Morocco National Auto Museum. What’s more, it’s paired with its natural opposite—a very wide Wrangler, built from two Jeeps which were joined to become one. He also shares a couple of clips of the vehicles running and driving.
The best thing in the video, though? We’re treated to a random clip of three black Wranglers driving along the sand, shot in profile. Only, when they turn towards the camera, the hilarity is revealed. One skinny, one wide, and one normal Wrangler in between. Clearly whoever owns these things has a taste for automotive humor.
The Skinny One
Unfortunately, I’ve been able to find very few details on the narrow Jeep. From what we see in the SaberDrives videos, it looks to have two seats, front and rear, though it’s not clear how one gets into the back, if at all. It generally appears to be assembled from a real Jeep donor. For reasons we can’t determine, it also has a large diagonal bulge in the hood.
I’d speculate that the drivetrain may be non-standard. While we see a normal differential at the rear, it’s hard to imagine the chassis still has room for the regular engine.
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I did find the above post from one Patricia Toth, who also visited the museum some years ago. She says that the vehicle belongs to the car collection of “a rich man in the middle of the Sahara desert.” Not much to go on, but my research on the wider Jeep netted some further hints in that regard.
Que prefieres
Jeeeeeeeeeep
O
JP pic.twitter.com/JByv7dk9UG— RaulS2 (@RaulS210) September 28, 2024
The Wide One
The double-wide Jeep is a little better documented. It appears on YouTube in a 2013 video, and it can be seen taking up far more than a single lane of traffic. It was documented by Polish website Bezdroza4x4, and The Drive even ran a story on it back in 2023.
The wide Jeep has four buckets seats in front, and the same in the back. The steering wheel is on the left side of the vehicle. Photos posted by the Polish outlet, which we can’t directly share here, show that it appears to have some kind of brake disc setup in the middle of the ultra-wide rear axle assemblies. It’s also got a unique subframe structure in the middle where the two Jeeps meet, with additional suspension components helping hold up the rear axle, assembled from two separate Jeep units.
The Polish outlet states the Jeep was spotted near Merzouga, near the border with Algeria. We’re also told it’s around 3.5 meters wide—or roughly 11.5 feet.
There’s also a post on the r/WeirdWheels subreddit concerning this vehicle, featuring some of the photos from Bezdroza4x4. It suggests the vehicle is part of the collection of one Sheikh Hamad Bin Hamdan Al Nahyan. If you’re not familiar with your Emirati royals, he’s the brother of Mohamed bin Zayed, the current President of the UAE and ruler of Abu Dhabi. He presently serves as a politician and chairman of Dolphin Energy, a state-owned gas concern. One of his prime achievements was establishing a ban on child jockeys in camel racing, back in 2002.
From the collection of the Late Sheikh Hamad Bin Hamdan Al Nahyan.
byu/Diamond_Dog_XOF inWeirdWheels
Another Instagram post also popped up, taken five or more years ago at the Moroccan museum. It shows a small sign in front of the “Double Jeep,” which lists its year as “2011” and that it was made in the USA. It’s unclear if this refers to the donor vehicle or the location in which the vehicle was actually customized and built.
Sadly, we still don’t know much about who built the vehicle and why. Nor the finer details of its mechanicals and performance. It appears that most people that see these vehicles are content to snap a few pictures without diving deeper into what actually makes them tick.
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Ultimately, there are a few easy ways to learn more about these vehicles. A starting point would be to put the SaberDrive video in front of someone with the right language skills. Beyond that, a trip to the Moroccan National Automotive Museum would be helpful, too. Unfortunately, the museum closed to the public some time ago, though the video tour we’ve seen suggests it may still be open by appointment to some degree.
In any case, I’ll keep digging for more information and update this article accordingly. I’ve already reached out to SaberDrives for more details. The people need to know about Tiny Jeep, that much is certain.
Image credits: SaberDrives via Instagram/YouTube screenshot
I wanted to say that you can copy & paste that licence plate together quite easily … but you can’t. David is right.
That thing is whack, you can barely fit any rubber duckies on that skinny dash.
Peter Gregory would like a word…
(he said, safe in the knowledge that someone would get the Silicon Valley reference…)
Damn the front looks just like one of those jumping spiders..
I think that all the modern Jeeps with LED halos around the headlight look like jumping spiders!
IIRC he is known as the rainbow sheikh and has a collection of customs including some house sized vehicles like a Dodge Power Wagon and a Jeep Willys that are fully drivable.
I picture myself rolling this thing practically everywhere I went, a la Clarkson in a Reliant Robin.
I think this is one of my favorite headlines I’ve ever seen on The Autopian. The matter-of-factness lets the message be the punchline, and is dead-on accurate. It is a very narrow Jeep.
I’m just glad they finally dropped the “some genious”.
Haha, I rode that frustration curve up and up until finally I broke through and it became a running gag to me, but I definitely understand the bother 🙂
THESE ARE FANTASTIC! Whatever Presidental candidate mandates all cars must be made in 1/2x wide, 1x wide and 2x wide variants BY LAW gets my vote.
Do we think the wide Jeep and Skinny jeep came from the same 2 donors? Wide jeep was the original build and the guys had two sides of jeep left over and tried for the up sell?
I also am so curious about how it is powered.
Funhouse mirrors. For some reason the skinny Jeep makes me think of a penny farthing – maybe the proportions.
I’m disappointed the brand badge on the wide Jeep isn’t “Jeeeee…eeeep”. Wide enough to go from where the original J would start on the left to where the P stops on the right.
*falls over on his side laughing*
Is it bad that my first thought is that I want to tip it over? Cow tipping may not be real, but if Skinny Jeeps became a thing, Jeep tipping might be the new fad.
haha when I saw it turn I half expected it to tip itself over. This thing has to be hilariously unstable to actually drive
I literally said “skinny jeeeeep” when I saw the pic, so … mission accomplished?
I am actually interested to know about that narrow, white alien insect working thing towards the end of the video.
Oh, and also that amphibious thing also painted white just a little bit after that.
With the wide Jeep, my first thought is that that is an extremely short wheelbase, turning it must be kind of interesting, what’s the Ackermann look like?
Before i clicked on the article, i was worried about the duck capacity of the dashboard. Then i was reassured that there is also a very wide one that more than compensates for that shortcoming. Whew.
The narrow Jeep is a great idea. The wide one is just excess for the sake of excess, but the narrow one would be great for narrow trails.
In the video, it looked like a speed bump could tip it. Not sure I’d want that on any sort of trail. Still, I sort of love it.
Admittedly, I skipped the video. It checks out that it would be top-heavy, but it is still fun.
I like the wide one.
–o||||||||||||||||||||||||o–
Jep
Unironically I’d happily daily drive that narrow Jeep. My only real concern is how much of a tipping hazard it would be. That being said it’s probably an automatic 🙁
Honestly it might be easier to do this with a JL if you wanted to keep the manual transmission due to the cable shifting, it would need an odd pully system but I bet it’s doable.
The only reason I haven’t bought a Daihatsu Midget II is the lack of DOT legal snow tires for it, the size was never really a concern for me.
Yeah, I heard it’s a Saudi that lives in Morocco that commissions these builds: https://gtspirit.com/2013/03/10/overkill-ridiculous-custom-jeep-wrangler-in-morocco/
Correction: Hamdan bin Zayed is the brother of current ruler, Hamad bin Hamdan Al Nahyan is a cousin .. i think.
If you have a chance to visit UAE, go to Emirates National Auto Museum, you’ll see all kind of weird cars.
Not gonna lie, if you have “fuck you” money, stuff like this is a great way to waste it. I love these!
Way better than how I’d spend “fuck you” money…
*Scraps idea for quadruple decker airliner that uses two A380 fuselages, canards, and 10 engines.*
Trying to revive Crimson Skies, IRL, are we?
The thin Jeep is a limited edition Spanx Wrangler.
The skinny one might be skinny enough to be allowed on ATV trails. ????
I was actually expecting to see a Polaris single seater chassis under it to be honest.