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Junkyard Gem: 1983 AM General postal Jeep DJ-5L

When neither snow nor rain nor gloom of night will stay you from your appointed rounds, you don't need fancy styling or futuristic technology. All you need is a simple steel box with four wheels, one seat (on the right-hand side), a mail-sorting tray, and an engine. The Jeep DJ was that vehicle, and DJs served as workhorses for the United States Postal Service starting in 1955 and — in some rural areas— into our current century. Here's one of the last ones made, found covered with snow in a Denver self-service wrecking yard. Related: Postal truck prototypes spied from Oshkosh and Karsan When American Motors bought Jeep in 1970, it built and sold DJs via its AM General subsidiary. The DJ-5 was a stripped-down, two-wheel-drive version of the pretty-spartan-to-start-with Jeep CJ, and there wasn't much to go wrong with it. The final year for the DJ-5 was 1984. During the AMC era, the DJ received an ever-shifting array of engines, depending on what looked like the best deal in Kenosha at a given time. Starting with the Chevrolet Nova straight-four, Jeep DJ engine compartments boasted AMC straight-sixes of 232- and 258-cubic-inch displacements, followed by Audi 2-liter straight-fours (yes, the same engine used by the Porsche 924), then the 2.5-liter GM Iron Duke four, and finally the 2.5-liter AMC straight-four. This DJ-5L has Duke power. The early DJs had manual transmissions, but all the AM General DJ-5s came with automatics. If you think an Iron Duke powering a Jeep is odd, consider that it's bolted to a Chrysler Torqueflite transmission. Once the USPS was done with them, cheap DJ-5s flooded the market. This one has had a random junkyard seat swap, but retains the handy mail-sorting tray. Featured Gallery Junked 1983 Jeep DJ-5L View 21 Photos Jeep Commercial Vehicles Classics amc mail truck

2014 North American Car and Truck/Utility of the Year finalists announced [w/poll]

The 2014 North American International Auto Show is right around the corner, which means it's high time we found out which cars and trucks would be finalists for the prestigious North American Car and Truck/Utility of the Year awards.
The finalists - three in cars and three in three trucks/utilities - are dominated by American brands, with two-thirds of the finalists hailing from either General Motors or Chrysler (don't worry Ford, there's always next year), while outliers from Mazda and Acura can be found in each contest. Here now is the list of finalists for the big prizes:
2014 North American Car of the Year:

Jeep Grand Cherokee Trackhawk undisguised with Hellcat power

Superchargers make everything better. Mount one to the top of a 6.2L Hemi V8 and pack it under the hood of a Jeep Grand Cherokee and you have a recipe for a completely bonkers, wholly unnecessary, and totally sweet SUV. We've known for a while that the so-called Trackhawk, essentially a Hellcat Jeep, is on its way. We now have photos of a completely undisguised test vehicle on public Michigan roads trying to make its way to SRT headquarters. Jeep already makes an SRT version of the Grand Cherokee. That version only puts out a measly 475 hp and 470 pound-feet of torque from a 6.4L Hemi. After developing a couple of 707-hp Dodges, SRT felt that Jeep needed some of that Hellcat love too. In the photos, we can see that, aside from the front fascia, the Trackhawk will look fairly similar to the standard SRT Grand Cherokee. The front retains the requisite Jeep grille, though it's been narrowed a bit to make room for larger air intakes below. The Hellcat engine creates a lot of heat, so designers needed to make sure the beast has plenty of room to breathe. New LED fog lights have been integrated into lower air ducts. We still don't know many of the Trackhawk's finer details, like the exact price or release date. We do know that Jeep claims a 3.5-second 0-60 time, making it both the quickest-accelerating Hellcat-powered vehicle and one of the quickest-accelerating vehicles in the world. For comparison, BMW claims the X5 M will do 0-60 in 4 seconds flat. Related Video: Featured Gallery Grand Cherokee Trackhawk View 9 Photos Spy Photos Jeep SUV