eBay Motors recently flew me from LA to Vail, Colorado, where I had my choice of four off-road machines: a Porsche Macan Crossturismo with all-terrain tires, a Lexus GX, a Toyota Tacoma, and a Jeep Cherokee XJ. As much as I loved the Lexus GX (as I wrote before), the XJ has won my heart, even though it may not be objectively better than the Lexus. And that’s simply because I feel at home in the XJ – more than in any other vehicle ever built.
My first car was a 1992 Jeep Cherokee XJ that I bought for $1,400 in the parking lot of Scott Stadium in Charlottesville, Virginia. It had 220,000 miles on it, rusty rocker panels, and a blown exhaust. I was pretty nervous because I had just turned 19 and had absolutely no experience working on cars.
What followed, however, were years of simultaneously learning how to work on cars and studying mechanical engineering in college. The combination of practical and theoretical engineering work – at the same time – changed my life and gave me a profound understanding of how cars work.
I drove this Jeep from 2010 until I moved to LA in 2022. Now it sits abandoned in the woods of Northern Michigan. Hopefully I can save it one day.
Anyway, I mention my good old XJ because driving the eBay Motors XJ – which the company bought from eBay Motors and modified with parts also obtained from eBay Motors – gave me quite nostalgic feelings.
Yes, the eBay Motors XJ is built much more extensively than my XJ. I only had 31″ all-terrain tires and a 3″ jack; that white Jeep in Colorado had 35″ tires and probably a 4.5″ jack. Also, the eBay Jeep was a 1999 with a reworked interior and exterior.
And yet it felt so familiar.
The route took us through beautiful Rocky Mountain forests, where the soil had been eroded and worn away by previous hikers. This allowed the Jeep’s rigid axles to show their strengths and glide effortlessly over the terrain:
Although I’m fairly certain the vehicle had not been shifted, the 4.0-liter engine’s tremendous low-end torque, coupled with the Jeep’s low gearing and light curb weight, meant I barely had to touch the accelerator to get up steep slopes and over large boulders.
When I look at the engine bay, when I tap the accelerator and feel the instant response, when I turn the steering wheel and feel that vague but buttery power steering, when I tap the meager brakes, when I look through the huge greenhouse at my clearly visible surroundings – all of this makes me feel at home. It’s the Jeep that taught me everything – how to drive off-road, how to wrench, how to drift in the snow, how to rip donuts, and on and on.
It’s not an objectively great vehicle in terms of ride quality, noise, fuel economy, and so on. But it has soul, it can drive like a monster off-road, it’s cheap, spare parts are available (on eBay Motors, my hosts will probably remind you), it’s small and light, and, most importantly, it feels like home. If it were possible to have a car as a “best friend,” the XJ would be mine, and as I realized while driving this white example in Colorado, I don’t think that will ever change.
Which vehicle do you feel most comfortable driving?
