Gladiator

Make
Jeep
Segment
Sports Car

UPDATE 2: The AWE JT Gladiator makes its way home, stopping in tons of locations along the way, including Arapaho National Park, the Badlands and Grand Canyon, jumping ahead to Detroit and the Jeep's spiritual home in Toledo, Ohio. The boys eventually make their to AWE's headquarters in Pennsylvania. Check out the third video below.

UPDATE: AWE just published its second video at Moab with its AWE Jeep Gladiator, where we get to see it tackle some of the hardest obstacles the desert has to offer including Hell's Revenge. The articulation of the suspension alone is amazing, though the ease of the climb almost makes it anticlimactic. Check out the new video below the first.

AWE out of Horsham, Pennsylvania has been building go-fast parts for 30 years. It started with VWs and Audis, hence Air and Water Enterprises, before expanding to almost every foreign car under the sun. But a few years ago, the company started working on American cars and going off-road. In addition to Ford Mustangs and Chevy Camaros, AWE began creating no-compromise exhausts for Rangers, Raptors, and Rams, and eventually Jeep Wranglers and Gladiators. And this Jeep Gladiator might be the most no-compromise of all.

"We felt that we needed to show the world that AWE could leverage its precision-engineering chops from McLaren, Porsche, and others into the broader aftermarket," said Jesse Kramer, VP of marketing. "We made this evolution in 2015 into modern muscle, then went into trucks with the Raptor in November 2018, and Jeeps in 2021. We've always loved Jeeps personally - now we get to do it professionally. What's better than that?"

To prove the toughness of the AWE JT Jeep Gladiator (which was built by one dude named Sean!), the team drove the thing from Pennsylvania to one of the most off-roady places in the world, Moab, Utah. The boys filmed the entire trip for posterity and have brought it exclusively to CarBuzz, because we (and they) know what you like: purpose-built vehicles doing the things they were built for.

The AWE JT centers around the company's Tread Edition catback exhaust "featuring patented drone-cancelling 180 Technology" along with an AWE Loop Replacement Pipe that moves the exhaust out of the way of extra suspension parts. The company also offers a Trail Edition catback exhaust, each for different purposes.

"The Trail and Tread Editions differ in makeup across the Gladiator and Wrangler models," said creative manager Josh Davis, of the company's bread-and-butter product. "For the Gladiator, both the Tread and Trail Editions are catback configurations that feature our patented drone-canceling technology. The Tread Edition offers two tailpipe configurations - a single outlet and a dual outlet, both of which receive 5-inch double-walled straight-cut tips. The Trail Edition, instead of pipes and tips, gets a best-in-clearance turn-down section that, to this day, has not come in contact with any obstacle. It's peace-of-mind for those who like to get rugged all the time in their Jeep."

"Now for the Wrangler, we offer the Tread Edition in an axle-back form factor. Drivers have the option to add either a resonated or non-resonated mid-pipe. The Trail Edition comes as a full catback configuration that ends with the same turn-down section in the back," said Davis.

The 3.5-inch Game Changer Suspension and HD Chromoly Dog-Legged Tie Rod come from MetalCloak. The same company also provided most of the armor including the front bumper, rear bumper, overland tube fenders, high-clearance inner fenders, overland rocker, rear quarter rockers, and skid plates. The beadlock wheels are from Zephyr; Falken provides the 38-inch tires and DV8 Off Road came with the spare tire mount. It's basically a SEMA build but not for SEMA.

And there's more. This build comes with an SB Filters cold-air intake and a Superchips Pulsar chip tuner. For the off-road bits, we have an Adams 1350 CV driveshaft, ARB Dana M220 front and rear 32-spline air locker differentials, an ARB compressor, a G2 Axle & Gear JD Dana 44 front and rear 5.13 ring and pinion kit, and G2 front and rear differential covers. Rigid does most of the lighting and a Warn Zeon 10-S winch features in front.

In this first of three videos, we see the AWE team completing the build of the JT Gladiator before they head out to the slick rocks of Moab for some serious trail riding. We know the Gladiator isn't quite as capable as the Wrangler due to its length, which we see right off the bat, but with the numerous upgrades it tackles rocks with ease. The second video features day two at Moab and the third is the ride home. Both of which you'll have to stay tuned for here, or at AWE's YouTube channel.

If you've experienced this sort of adventure driving, you know the feeling. But even if you haven't and are maybe a little nervous to go off-road, we can tell you there's really nothing like it. Especially when you have capability like this.