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| © Provided by CBS Interactive Inc. The Jeep Gladiator XMT wouldn't be Jeep's first Gladiator-based military vehicle, but it'd be the first since 1969. FCA/AM General |
It's no secret that Jeep's Wrangler-derived Gladiator
pickup truck has been a success. People can't seem to get enough of
them. It's kind of like what happened when AM General decided to produce
a civilian version of its HMMWV, aka the Humvee, aka the Hummer.
Say, that makes me wonder what it would be like if Jeep and AM
General teamed up on a vehicle for the military. Would it be cooler than
the already polar-bear's-toenails-cool Gladiator Rubicon? It turns out the answer is yes, because the two companies just debuted a concept version.
Now, before we get too excited, we don't know anything about the
Extreme Military Grade (XMT) Gladiator beyond the fact that it would be
offered to military customers as either a gasoline- or diesel-powered
vehicle. It would -- if successful -- go into production as early as
2020.
The photo of the concept shows what is essentially a beige
Gladiator with no doors, no roof and a big ol' brush bar up front.
Still, even a standard consumer-grade Gladiator is pretty stout, with a
serious towing capacity of over 7,000 pounds, locking differentials,
tons of suspension travel and all kinds of beefy skid plates.
The
Gladiator XMT concept was debuted on Monday at the Annual Meeting and
Exposition of the Association of the US Army (AUSA) and if selected for
production, would represent the Jeep Gladiator's first reentry to the
world of military vehicles since 1969 when it ceased production on the Kaiser Jeep M715.
