About six months after its green paint was shimmering on display at last year’s SEMA show in Las Vegas, the Jeep Quadratec JTe concept was covered in dirt, horsing around at Holly Oaks ORV Park in Michigan. About 60 miles north of Car and Driver headquarters in Ann Arbor, the off-road playground, with its bounty of obstacles and varied terrain, provided the perfect environment to find out whether the one-of-a-kind four-wheeler is a true workhorse or just a show pony.
A Two-Door Gladiator Is Born
It didn’t take us long to realize that the custom-built Jeep exceeded the lofty capabilities of the Wrangler Rubicon 4xe it’s based on. We easily scaled a sheer rock face in 4L with both differentials locked. We disconnected the front anti-roll bar and flexed the suspension over a section of large boulders. And we also slid the JTe around a gravel pit while we hooted and hollered and kicked up huge dust clouds. That last bit had less to do with vehicle evaluation and more to do with something our therapist calls failure-to-launch syndrome.
Sure, 37-inch Nitto Recon Grappler A/T tires and a 2.5-inch Lynx suspension lift help the Quadratec JTe feel extra capable, but the fact that the mini–monster truck is believable as a real two-door Gladiator is a testament to the job done by builder Greg Henderson. Even more impressive, all the fabrication was done by hand, transforming what began as a four-door 2022 Jeep Wrangler Rubicon 4xe into the JTe concept, whose moniker combines the Gladiator’s JT model code with “e” to identify the electrified powertrain.
Jeep enthusiasts will recognize Quadratec as a go-to source for aftermarket equipment, and the supplier created the idea of a two-door, plug-in-hybrid Gladiator. Currently, Jeep’s convertible pickup truck is offered only with four doors, and the odds of a factory two-door are slim to none. Meanwhile, a plug-in-hybrid 4xe version of the Gladiator will likely become available for the 2024 model year. Like many SEMA builds, the JTe provides a showcase for Quadratec’s aftermarket business, but the company has no intention of building a two-door Gladiator like the JTe for customers. Instead, Quadratec specifically commissioned Henderson to build a hybrid-powered concept to coincide with its ongoing “50 for 50” trail-stewardship initiative, which promotes sustainable off-roading and partners with the nonprofit Tread Lightly! and others to clean up trail systems in every state. This led to a Wrangler 4xe as the JTe’s starting point.
Then the cutting began. Henderson basically chopped off the back half of the Wrangler’s cab, removing the rear seats and cargo area but leaving the ladder frame beneath. He then resealed the cab using Mopar replacement body panels and fabricated a unique hardtop that’s compatible with Jeep’s removable roof panels. While the five-foot cargo bed was sourced from a regular Gladiator, Henderson had to fill in about 10 inches of missing material.
On our scales, the JTe weighs 5635 pounds, which is 317 pounds heavier than a factory four-door Wrangler Rubicon 4xe we’ve tested. That has a marginal impact on the concept’s acceleration, as its 5.7-second sprint to 60 mph and quarter-mile run of 14.4 seconds at 94 mph are a few tenths behind the stock version. Visually, though, most people wouldn’t know the JTe is different from other heavily modified Jeeps. Hell, we might not have noticed, had we not known better.
Apart from relocating the roughly 14.0-kWh battery from under the old rear seats to a higher position under the cargo bed, Henderson left the Wrangler’s hybrid powertrain alone, meaning the turbocharged 2.0-liter four-cylinder and the electric motor mounted in the eight-speed automatic transmission still combine for 375 horsepower and 470 pound-feet of torque. On the stock 4xe, electric range is EPA estimated at 21 miles, and its combined fuel-economy rating is 20 mpg, but the JTe’s extra mass, lift kit, and massive tires render those EPA figures irrelevant.
More Than a Jeep Thing
We had the JTe at the off-road park for only a couple of fun-filled hours, but afterward we spent several days driving it like any other grocery getter. And on the street, the jacked-up Jeep attracts a ton of attention. Perhaps that’s thanks to the attractive paint job accented by bronze-colored trim and matching 17-inch Lynx Trail Gunner wheels. Or maybe it’s Quadratec’s intimidating Carnivore front bumper, which incorporates a 12,000-pound Res-Q Teton winch. A second 9000-pound winch lives in the rear bumper behind the detachable license plate. By far our personal favorite accessory is the slim 50-inch light bar mounted inside the top of the windshield. It makes stoplights harder to see, but its amber setting looks badass, and unlike many roof-mounted light bars, it doesn’t cause wind noise. Yet there’s no avoiding the excess noise inside the JTe’s cabin, where the sound level is a lofty 78 decibels during 70-mph cruising. That’s four times the sound pressure and twice the perceived volume of a stock Wrangler 4xe’s 72-decibel figure.
While the concept’s cabin is cramped and noisy, it isn’t a torture chamber. Regular Wranglers aren’t particularly refined, and the JTe doesn’t feel as far off as one would expect from this Frankenstein-mobile. The Katzkin leather seat covers with Quadratec branding and the 3-D-printed door pockets hint at its modified nature, but because stick-axle Jeeps are often defined by personalization, those details aren’t out of place. The aftermarket Alpine touchscreen is, however, with its bulky bezel and low-res graphics. But it is responsive to inputs, and wireless Apple CarPlay works flawlessly—something we can’t always say about OEM infotainment systems.
Our biggest gripes are an incessant squeaking behind the passenger’s seat and what sounds like a hive of angry bees under the hood (we don’t recall hearing that during our last test of a Wrangler 4xe). The other major issue is that the retrofitted cab creates a big blind spot over the driver’s left shoulder, necessitating extreme neck craning to check the left lane. After the JTe initially wouldn’t accept a charge, we reached out to Henderson, whose solution was to “plug it in, unplug it, then plug it right back in.” While that did the trick, it’s obviously not ideal. Quadratec thinks the charging issues could be caused by a communication issue with the aftermarket infotainment, but it is a problem other Wrangler 4xe owners have experienced, according to posts in various Jeep forums.
Still, we’ve said worse about vehicles that are built in a full-fledged factory. The Jeep Quadratec JTe was built in a garage in 90 days. Despite that, it always felt fully operational, and we never thought it would fall apart on the highway, which is not something we can say about all SEMA show cars. We can also say that the JTe is an entertaining one-off off-roader.
