I just spotted on Facebook Marketplace a red, white, and blue Jeep Cherokee XJ. It’s absolutely bonkers; the right side of it is red, the center of it — the hood and roof — are white, and the left side of it is blue. As a seasoned Jeep XJ aficionado, I can say with certainty that this is all original paint, leading me to believe that someone swapped the panels from a red and blue XJ onto a white vehicle. But then I looked again, and I found out that I was wrong.
I am so confused by this 1998 Jeep Cherokee for sale in Lynchburg, Virginia. It’s three factory-original colors, leading me to think someone had just swapped some red and blue fenders and doors onto a white XJ. But upon closer inspection, the door jambs on the left side are actually blue and the door jambs on the right side are red.
Have a look at the red side:
Notice how the door jambs are also painted:
Here’s the blue side on the left:
Notice that the door jamb is also painted to match!
So was this a respray? How did this person pull off this build? Here’s part of the $6,900 Facebook Marketplace listing‘s description:
This Jeep started life as a two wheel drive Jeep Cherokee Classic. In the year 2021 it underwent a full transformation. It was completely rebuilt with the use of a 2001 120k mile, four wheel drive, Jeep drivetrain and was transformed into a Jeep tribute concept…
[…]
The original cluster reads 282k. The motor, transmission, transfer case, rear end, differentials, entire drivetrain, etc has 120k miles. We have put 4,700 miles on the build since completed. One of a kind, 1 of 1. In addition it is also a tribute to Dolly Parton’s “Coat of Many Colors”. It has been driven to multiple Jeep shows and is an award winning Jeep. Jump in and drive anywhere in the country. This 4.0 Inline six gets 18-20 MPG and has great power.
I had to glance again at the Jeep to see why it won awards at Jeep shows, because surely it’s not just the three-tone paint, right?
Then I saw it, and my god is this thing incredible.
All Images: Facebook Marketplace (Tanner Burks)
I need it. I need it so bad…….
This reminds me of the preproduction Catera I was lucky enough to drive (For 50 feet). It was a mishmash of different leathers and cloth patterns on the inside as they were still deciding the final choices. So Awesome!
There’s only one question here. When do you buy it?
Tan carpets with gray interior otherwise, too.
An absolute mix of color
This reminds of a story from my father in law. He worked in production at Chrysler in the eighties and worked at the plant that built dodge shadows. They were still learning about automation, and didn’t have the robots communicate in the same way they do now. This led to an incident where they built a three door Shafow, which made it down the line until it was time to put the roof on!
Here’s the story, direct from him, complete with dramatic embellishment:
“ We built a 3 door Shadow once by mistake at Sterling Heights.
Operators put a 2 door aperture on the left side and a 4 door on the right. Each side of the frame station recognized the individual body side panels for what they were & threw the right clamps and weld guns. Then broadcast to the 99 robots spot welding after framing, left side 2 door right side 4 door. Every weld was right on.
I was called to the roof machine, line was down. plant manager, ops manager and BIW manager were all trying to get a roof on the vehicle, screaming at each other. The roof was different between 2 & 4 door.
All three of them were so close the vehicle they couldn’t see what the F it was, they were just screaming at each other and me, demanding i figure out what was wrong.
I just lit a cigarette, took a drag, then said “it’s a 3 door”. They looked at me like what the F is a 3 door, I said you got your hands all over it, step back and look.
I thought the car was cool & wanted to make a custom roof for it , finish building it, & show it off. One of a kind it would have been worth millions.”
That is a great story!
He has a ton of great stories about Chrysler. He started out on the assembly line, moved into a supervisor position, got pissed off, quit, got an engineering degree, and went back and was there through the Daimler Chrysler and FCA years, finally retiring about 5 years ago.
This is why I trust robots implicitly. Their programmers, though? Not so much.
I work at an integration company and, yea. There are very few robot programmers that I fully trust.
That’s awesome, thanks for sharing
This is the makings of the Johnny Cash b-side we never knew we needed.
A friend in Engineering at Chrysler once told me about a 3-door neon that was built (on purpose) in 1994. One side had the two doors from a 4-door, and the other side had the single door from a Coupe. The point was to illustrate how few parts were actually different when comparing the 2-door Coupe and the 4-door. The roof skin was the same for the 2-door and the 4-door, so it could be assembled! This XJ Cherokee is a similar situation, but they had to do it the hard way: by taking two cars apart and welding the pieces back together!
I hope that they did that due to the accidental 3 door Shadow!
My firm belief is that this is two cars grafted lengthwise together somewhere. I assume there’s a seam in the roof hidden under the white paint. That would explain the doors and door jambs. My guess is the red is the minority share.
A person familiar with how automotive bodies are assembled could remove and reattach an entire body side without too much trouble, just a lot of labor
As a person familiar with how automotive bodies are assembled, it is a monumental amount of trouble to do as you describe. They way they glue and spot weld components together can make them near impossible to separate.
To build this thing would have required some serious effort and skill.
Should have come with two steering wheels too.
They sold these if right hand drive I believe that would be icing on the cake
At least there aren’t 3 wheels on this wagon…
That certainly seems like a very reasonable price these days, which always makes me suspicious.
Well, I’ve owned a 4 door, and a 2 door, but never a 3 door. Crap. Time to buy another XJ…
Detroit David would have this as a lawn ornament by now.
I have a relative who lives in that general area – was riding with him somewhere when I noticed the back seat upholstery was different – on both the seats and also the doors and more. I asked, and it turned out the car was in fact two different cars (of the same model, he wasn’t insane) that had been welded together. That was the first and last time I rode in that car.
I bet was just cheaper to do one door than two after it got damaged to the point that all of the inner and outer body panels on that side needed to be replaced anyway. Maybe they rolled it off road or something and it only got the side, or maybe that’s why the top and hood are white, and it’s all junkyard body panels. Maybe the only Jeep in the parts yard with a good drivers side was a 2 door. They wouldn’t want everyone to know it’s like that because they’re cheap so they’d come up with some nonsense about a tribute and Dolly Parton since everyone knows everybody loves Dolly Parton. Makes…perfect….sense…
No way it was cheaper to do that. XJ’s are unibody and this thing would have been totaled if it needed enough work to end up doing this. Its absolutely intentional.
I’m not really being serious, I’m sure it was intentional. Wouldn’t you just have to replace the inner and outer quarter panels though?
yes, though I think the inner may prove a bit tricky, particularly to line up with the b pillar differences; you’d likely be sectioning an existing 2 door to do it right. I owned a 2 door and the parts can be hard to come by as well (for example nobody including Jeep make replacement window gaskets for the 2 door side windows anymore). Assuming they did this years ago it was probably easier to source the parts.
Jeep Veloster?
Its the XJ Bombpop!
I had…a different reaction…but good to see you back on the wagon, DT!
This is like the moment in every Lifetime Christmas movie where the city girl back to visit her family farm watches the local hunk ride a horse while shirtless and realizes what she gave up when she left her humble roots behind to pursue a career in the big city.
uhhh…
check the door count.
That was immediately obvious (and irrelevant to my point).
There’s now been a stealthy correction to the error I was making fun of.
If you’re looking at it from the front, that’s true!
It is a tribute to Dolly Parton’s Coat of Many Colors…? Huh, it looks red, white and blue. Where’s the orange, the gold, the turquoise, the purple? Jump in and drive anywhere in the country? Surely this is a bad joke?
check the door count on each side.
I get that – was referring to everything else about this Jeep!
I think it’s Awesome
And why is it Red, White and Blue?
Because AMC
Before I saw the other surprise my first thought was it was an attempt at a tribute to the AMC race cars.
Yeah, I agree with everyone else saying the color combo might not be the most interesting thing about this vehicle. You really buried the lede that it clearly has one door on the blue side, but two doors on the red side. Or was it possible to get ’em from the factory in a 3-door config and I’m showing my XJ ignorance?
I just noticed that it also has different wheels on each side, or at least it appears to in this set of photos.
They went all in, it’s the uplevel “Classic” with the alloys on the passenger side and it’s a lower level “sport” with the basic steel wheels and chrome plastic covers on the drivers side. They even maintained the power windows on the drivers side but manual on the passenger. If they’d done the upgraded leather seats on the passenger it would have really sealed the deal!
…that was the point
Jeep Veloster
Came to say this
Beat me to it.
[Picard voice]”There are THREE doors!”[/Picard voice]
A three-door XJ? What an odd build.
It’s a 4 door on the passenger side and a 2 door on the driver’s side? How DID they pull that off?
Yeah I understand there wasn’t really any major differences between the 2dr and 4dr same wheel base and such. But I do wonder how they did this? Like was the 2 door side originally a 4dr that was converted to 2door?
Is this like an AMC tribute, but with the longer door on the driver’s side? I feel like I am in bizarro world. There is a glitch in The Matrix.
The 4 door and the 2 door have the same wheelbase, the seat locations are all the same, just the 2 door gets longer side doors. They say they started with a “Classic”, which is how the passenger side identifies, so my assumption is they had a 4 door originally and then sectioned in the side panels and door from a 2 door they found.
The white creeping around the sides of the grill and tailgate make this thing appear shorter than it should be.
Left side red?
Ok DT. What kind of drugs are we doing today?
And count me in…
Respray for sure.
I get it, you hate America…….