In a career spanning twenty years, Mark Gerisch, the founder of Vehicle Concepts by Mark (formerly M&L Automotive), has made quite a reputation with his hand-built custom cars. His client list includes such notables as Tonight Show host Jay Leno (an aluminum-bodied Cobra recreation so spot on, Cobra experts are hard pressed to tell it from a Shelby original) and ZZ Top drummer Frank Beard (a Ferrari 250GTO roadster, built from a 250GTE 2+2 coupe). However, his Jeep Grand Cherokee KirkWood Edition shown here might be his most ambitious project to date.
You may think you have seen this vehicle, but in reality Jeep has not offered a factory-built pickup in ten years and has never offered a pickup built on the Grand Cherokee platform. Part SUV, part shortbed pickup, this KirkWood Edition, named after the famed California ski resort, offers a combination of styles and capabilities: utility, luxury and mobile entertainment that is unmatched.
The vehicle started life as a conventional Grand Cherokee Limited SUV and came from the factory with a brown satin glow factory finish. It was first shown at Camp Jeep 2000, a DaimlerChrysler-sponsored gathering of almost 10,000 Jeep owners. Sixty days later it was on display in the Michelin booth at the 2000 SEMA Show; then it was featured in The Right Connections booth at the 2001 Consumer Electronics Show. Following CES, the KirkWood Edition appeared in feature articles in more than a half dozen publications around the world including Today's SUV, Mobile Electronics, Truckin', Australian InCar Entertainment, along with other publications and Web sites.
KirkWood Edition, Second GenerationIn addition to its innovative center section (see sidebar), the KirkWood Edition features a new front fascia that is combined with completely new side cladding, giving it a distinctive, luxurious appearance. With Jeep's Quadra-Drive full-time four-wheel-drive system, it retains Jeep's legendary go-anywhere capability. In spite of its lowered appearance, it retains the same height and ground clearance of a stock Jeep Grand Cherokee, and remains a fully capable off-roader (something that can't be said of the larger luxury 4-door pickups)
In the summer of 2001, more than a year after it first appeared at Camp Jeep, Datron Mobile Electronics, manufacturers of the CruiseTV satellite TV antenna/tracking system, approached Gerish to use the KirkWood to showcase their system, which provides an in-vehicle DirecTV or DISH Network feed, while the vehicle is moving. Four mini-antennas rotate inside the nine-inch high rooftop housing (that looks much like a rooftop cargo carrier), allowing the unit to track the satellites in orbit 24,000 miles above the earth's surface. (It should be noted that there is no reason why the system can't be used with the Hughes DirecPC system to provide real-time e-mail and Internet access as well.)
At the same time Datron entered into a marketing and distribution agreement with Audiovox to distribute the CruiseTV system to the automotive industry, the KirkWood Edition was used at the 2001 SEMA Show to showcase the technology. Its original brown satin glow finish was replaced by a unique Sherwin-Williams Pearl White applied by Compton, California's Original Body Shop. The new KMC 20 x 8.5-inch Floss wheels are now shod with high performance Falken P265/50 ZIEX S/TZ tires which have the same diameter as the stock P235/65-17. A custom low-restriction dual exhaust system from Borla gives this 4.7-liter V-8 a distinctive growl along with a ten-horsepower improvement in power.
Since the vehicle would be on display in the Audiovox booth, the mobile electronics system was completely revised. The original MOPAR overhead monitor and freestanding navigation system were removed and replaced with Audiovox components.