The Jeep Shortcut Is The Best Damn Retro Wrangler Custom Around

The Jeep Shortcut Concept is basically a current Wrangler with the front and rear overhangs chopped off and some added off-road hardware, but made to look like the famous CJ Jeep that stemmed from World War II. It's cute, but it definitely looks like it could kick butt off-road.

"Why did they call this concept the Shortcut?", you might wonder. Did they quickly throw this thing together haphazardly? Is the idea that the car's capability allow you to take shortcuts through rough terrain?

I honestly don't know, but I do know that this two-door Wrangler has been cut short by about a foot, yielding approach and departure angles of darn-near 90 degrees, meaning there's no slope that's too steep for this little baby Jeep.

Powertrain wise, it's all fairly standard: just a Pentastar V6 bolted to an A580 five-speed automatic. But on the outside, the car looks very different from your run-of-the-mill Wrangler. It sits on a two-inch lift-kit with Fox shocks, it's got bright red wheels which Jeep said they were considering covering with hub-caps (I'm glad they didn't) and 35-inch BFG Mud-Terrain T/A KM2s.

The grille, hood, tailgate, front and rear flares and bumpers are all custom and reach for a CJ-5 kind of vibe.

Do I think it looks like a CJ-5? The roll bar, tub and bumpers are very CJ-esque, I'll give them that, but those chrome headlight bezels and the vertical grille have me thinking TJ, the later Wrangler of the late 1990s into the mid 2000s.

That's not a bad thing at all, though, as this bright-red little Jeep looks like it could climb anything.

Also, look at these seats. I need them.