The automotive market is currently full of restomod companies and all of them want to stand out. For Vigilante 4×4, a brand that centers its work around classic Jeep products, standing out means coming to the market with huge figures.
Its latest creation, a modernized 1979 Cherokee S, leverages a 9.0-liter Viper V10 (I suppose it must have been bored out a bit, since Vipers typically have only 8.4-liters) to make 825 horsepower 750 lb-ft of torque. If those figures aren’t big enough this next one surely will be, Vigilante says its prices start at $295,000. That’s right; we’re talking about McLaren money for a Jeep.
On the surface that seems absolutely wild but take a deeper dive and things seem a little less crazy. Sort of like owning an actual Viper as a pet; actually wild, kinda pricey, and totally unnecessary but boy oh boy is it a conversation starter. For instance, who doesn’t want what Vigilante calls the “fastest vintage Jeep in the world?”
“I am proud to say that we have built the fastest vintage Jeep in the world. This 1979 Cherokee S with a Viper V10 is the result of countless hours of design, engineering, fabrication, paint, and so much more. It’s a true labor of love, and you’d be hard-pressed to find another team around the globe who has as much knowledge and experience working in Jeep restoration and modification as we have here at Vigilante,” comments Vigilante Co-Founder and CEO Daniel van Doveren.
No doubt, this company broke this Jeep down to the nuts and bolts before putting it back together. The company says it started by stripping the body down to its bare metal before sitting it atop a modern chassis with a purpose-built wiring harness and a custom suspension setup. Each corner benefits from Fox Racing shocks, Eibach springs, and six-piston brakes. Gone are the leaf springs.
The engine features a 6,400 RPM redline and sends that power to all four wheels via a six-speed manual gearbox, an Atlas-II transfer case, and Dana 40 and 60 axles respectively.
Of course, you wouldn’t know about all of the meticulous effort by simply looking at it. The finished body sits in Frosted Glass Blue with Status White as an accent color and a tribal stripe (could’ve called this a diamondback pattern… get it… Viper) around the body. The cabin features modern climate control, Dynamat soundproofing, bluetooth connectivity, and cloth, and leather upholstery.
Let’s work back to that earlier claim from Vigilante that this is the “fastest vintage Jeep in the world.” The Autopian asked Vigilante what data it had to back up that claim and this is what it told us.
“We have actually not timed any of that out of respect for our client,” which isn’t really super helpful so we pushed a little more and received this answer.
“No other automotive builders are customizing vintage Jeeps at the level Vigilante currently is. In an effort to push those boundaries of what these vehicles are capable of, Vigilante implemented the Viper V10 into this build for the first time ever. This engine is the most powerful and capable that Vigilante has ever incorporated into one of the company’s builds, making it the fastest Jeep to come out of the Vigilante shop to date.”
So is it the fastest vintage Jeep in the world? Maybe and for the record we here at The Autopian are happy to test it for Vigilante or their client if they’d like. Obviously, we have a bunch of excellent vintage Jeeps in the staff fleet ready to take it on.
It’s worth noting that while Vigilante says its prices start at $295,000, this Cherokee S is already sold. To that end, it’s sort of a demonstration piece more than anything. Vigilante will build just about any classic Jeep that one might dream of.
“We encourage all Vigilante customers to think big when designing their dream Vigilante Jeep, and the Viper V10 Cherokee is our latest example of pushing the boundaries of what a classic Jeep can do,” says van Doveren.
As of this writing, it has a J10 pickup and a Golden Hawk for sale beneath $200,000. Of course, it also has a completed 1988 Grand Wagoneer with a Hellcat Redeye engine under the hood for $385,000. Considering that price the Cherokee S could’ve easily gone for more. Vipers… it turns out that people pay a lot both for the animal and the engine. In my best Steve Irwin voice, what a little beauty.
That kind of money for a 3D printed intake held together with electrical tape and an airbox missing screws? Yeouch.
Not to mention that if someone were foolish enough to drive this anywhere and cause the front suspension to articulate, either the steering arm, the panhard bar, or both, are going through that oil pan.
Or, that was for test fitting and they made something slightly nicer before it shipped. I’m going with my guess.
Unless you know something we don’t, those parts look awfully finished for just a test fit.
One, overpowered Jeep (or) a small fleet of sweet cars/trucks for $295,000.
1%er cars suck.
I’d rather see the Magnum V10 in there.
Also what’s to say this Cherokee didn’t have the 258?
Also do we forget about all the diesels and GM V6 etc that have been shoved in Jeeps over the years? Super Hurricane flathead? Kaiser 327? Buick 350? The TORNADO? Iron duke? Buick V6? I mean sure some were decent… but the 360 or 401 as one of the worst?
I’m not sure what “fastest” means. There are a lot of FSJ guys that drag race their 401’s, or at least there used to be. Those AT tires on that Jeep… not the speed rating I’d choose.
https://www.motortrend.com/articles/greg-huizengas-turbocharged-6-1l-hemi-jeep-is-not-your-typical-11-second-two-door/
There’s Greg.
Right? There were not really any bad choices in engines for the 2-door cherokee cheifs.
They got the 258, 360, or 401. Saying that any of those were the “worst jeep engines ever” is just incorrect. I’d buy that statement if it had a tornado OHC inline. but not those mills.
Even the Tornado wasn’t a “bad” engine. Certainly interesting, just difficult to understand and maintain at the time. Since none are maintained and there are few parts it would certainly be one of the worst to own.
Cool, but overpriced and pointless
Exactly
I was looking at these over the weekend. I can’t fathom ever wanting one of these because I have no idea what I’d do with it. It’s far too nice to do anything fun with.
Of course, I also think the same about any car with >300 hp because I have no interest in racing something myself, so I’m a pretty weird car enthusiast anyway.
So then is this a Jiper or a Veep?
It will have to be Jiper, as Veep is already taken by CJ-shaper bodies for VW Beatles.
But Jiper sounds like some sort of racial epithet.
Please test this against the high-hood flattie and have a hilarious time with both. Then give me intimate pictures of both F-head and V10 goodness.
Been following these guys for a few years now, they do some really impressive work.
The links in this article are infuriating. If you put “it has a J10 pickup and a Golden Hawk for sale beneath $200,000″, and the “J10 Pickup” is a hyperlink, it should be in reference to the context of the sentence – e.g., THEIR J10 Pickup. Not an autopian article about a J10 that’s completely unrelated. I also could not for the life of me find an actual link to the specific Cherokee mentioned. I had to go to their website and hunt around.
The Jeep seems okay, albeit a bit expensive. What’s going on with the suspension? It appears lifted, but there only seems to be about 4″ of up-travel before the front shocks bottom out?
We’re being Jalop’d
Engine schmengine, it’s so pretty
Calling the AMC V8 one of the worst Jeep engines is one hell of a hot take…
mine used to spit hot oil at me like some kind of Looney Toons cartoon.
that engine died in like 3 different ways in one year – i hated this engine. dont even get me started on the gas consumption.
Yeah I’m trying to figure out what “One Of The Worst Jeep Engines Ever” is, specifically. Frustratingly, it’s never identified.
Sigh, I guess I’m just getting old. Looking at 825 horsepower and 750 ft-lb of torque on a 1978 Cherokee with stiff shocks and a spiffed-up suspension (meaning jacking it up and putting coil springs on the same old control arms) this comes to mind:
“You’ll Shoot Your Eye Out, Kid“
One high throttle, high speed turn and you would roll until something big stopped you.
I am just going to link this here for fun https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerrari#:~:text=The%20Jerrari%20Wagoneers%20are%20a,from%20a%20Ferrari%20365%20GT.
I would say the Jerraris are deserving of a proper write up. That’s a facinating thing and I would love to read more about it
SO will DT try to drop a Viper engine in that CJ he’s working on? Seems like a must have for a proper Moab build…
Not even close. He’ll get it barely drive-able and it’ll stay that way until it breaks again. At which point, he’ll have accumulated five other rust buckets and have split it time between all of them so no meaningful progress will have been made on any of them.
I’m being a bit of a dick here, but I can’t remember a single project of his that has progressed much beyond getting it running and possibly legally on the road. That seems to be his end goal.
Was expecting the Leaf drivetrain to appear in a Jeep
Hey, getting a vehicle barely drive-able and questionably legal is basically the plot of every episode of Roadkill. Seems to work for them.
For when you absolutely, positively MUST die in a spectacular pile of flaming wreckage.
Fer fucks sake, there is nothing wrong with a small block AMC, David is just a lil’ butthurt he couldn’t get his to run.
I’m about a decade and a half or so older than David and carbs are my nemesis. Granted all by carb’ed cars were emissions strangled ’70s and’80s American iron. I’m currently working on a 1962 Corvair that is giving me fits. I rebuilt both carbs to spec and it does not want to run.
I’m about Davids age, and I agree that carbs are a total PITA. But that’s not what his complaints were about. He had a worn out one, with a bad oil pump. So he wrote this article about how they are the greatest pieces of shit to ever be installed in an automobile. Not his best take.
I’m certainly not a huge fan of carbs, but the people most often bitching about them either refuse to invest in a new one (along with some other reliability investments), or are trying to DD some crazy performance build and then are upset it isn’t working great.
Get a plain-Jane Edelbrock and it’ll likely run halfway decent out of the box (especially if it’s going on an SBC). Spend a couple hours learning how to tune it–before you go crazy messing everything up–and you’ll likely never have to touch it again.
But no, someone goes and throws the wrong size (used) Holley on their car, disconnects vacuum advance, doesn’t hook up the electronic choke, and then is mystified why their car runs like ass if it runs at all.
Yep. I just slapped on a 600 cfm edelbrock on mine, ran great out of the box. Lil bit of tuning with a vac gauge, easy peasy.
Then there are the people who spend months futzing with their carburetors but the real problem is their ignition system. But the carbs must be the problem because carbs.
If it’s not one thing it’s one of the others. Real enertainment to be had with a Carter or a Rochester or a set of Webers.
I have heard the Edelbrock’s are great from the box. If I had a SBC or Ford 302 I’d jump on one. My old 351W had an emissions strangled Autolite 2bbl. I’m certain a small 4 bbl would have improved mileage and emissions.
TBH, I’d be more than happy with the mild Hemi in this, maybe even an HO 4.0L I6. I know HP sells but it is beyond time to be realistic.
A 5.7L Hemi in a classic Jeep would be a quite excellent daily driver/summer cruise vehicle. My dad is planning on dropping a 5.7 into a late 60s Satellite convertible that’s been languishing for a few years, and that should make the car quite a bit easier to live with than the 318 that dutifully lugged that car’s heavy butt around in the late 90s.
Bingo, most classics are cruisers, not dragway bombers. I just want reliable, usable power for my application. I bet a 4.0L HO would have more everyday usable power than the boat anchor 360. My dream cruiser used to be to buy a ’60s F100 and drop in an ’80s Panther body drivetrain.
I currently own vehicles with both the 4.0 HO and an AMC 360.
The 360 (with factory 2bbl carb) doesn’t reward you that much for revving it out, but it’s far from a boat anchor. I expect a 4bbl carb would free up some top end quite happily.
Where it shines is at low rpm, where it has much more torque than the 4.0. Towing a trailer uphill is much easier and rarely requires a downshift. The same trailer behind the 4.0 has it screaming to make progress.
I ultimately prefer the 4.0, but there’s nothing wrong with a well sorted 360.
Please update us when the time comes.
I’m guessing that the V-10 was stroked. 600cc’s is a lot of boring.
That is correct, it’s a stroker crank.
https://www.prefix.com/files/Viper-Brochure-2020.pdf
As V10omous said, it was stroked. I wanted to do the math of what it would take to get to 9.0L by boring it over. Stock is 4.055″ bore with a 3.960″ stroke, giving 8.38L. 9.0L would be a 4.200″ bore, so 0.145″ over. Not even sure it has the bore spacing to handle that; though, the engine the V10 is based on has 4.45″ bore spacing, so if it has that, there’s physically space, but that doesn’t mean it can actually handle the heat and all that.
So…have they opened her up to see what she can do with that boss engine? No video or even a mention of top speed. Seems it’d have to be a helluva build to keep from rattling apart at 100mph (to say nothing of actual Viper speeds). If it holds up, great, that’d be fun to watch!
Given what these cost and what they’re used for, I think they included all the necessary perfomance details.
V10 go burble-burble? Check.
Can it get from the climate controlled garage to the show and shine? Check.
Can it make it to the climate controlled garage at the “cottage” on a fine summer day? Check.
Can it make an afternoon beer run at the cottage? Check.
I think that covers 100% of the realistic use cases here
Hey, it can also do a launch up to 25mph while it pulls a dual-300hp tritoon out of the cottage’s lake, or spin the tires a little pulling out onto the access road
Speaking from experience, my 1991 Grand Wagoneer (stock) gets sketchy at those speeds. Right around 85mph you start to feel the wind lift it up, then it wobbles side to side.
I had it to 100 once, on a very wind-free day, but I wouldn’t do it again.
I dread to think how much worse a lifted one would start to lift.