The Wrong Side

In recent days the internet has been losing its collective mind over a nudist car show that will be happening in Wisconsin this summer.  In an alternate universe I would make a hilarious joke about replacing the metaphorical dick swinging often seen at car shows with actual dick swinging, but in this universe I’m not that funny.

Instead I feel I need to turn your attention to something my best friend and fellow car addict recently saw.  He spotted a late model, right hand drive, Jeep Wrangler painted in Gecko Green.  A Jeep with the steering wheel on the wrong side.  In the wild.  In the United States of America.  In bright green of all colors!  This, dear readers, is something that needs to be celebrated by us all.

I’ve long known about right hand drive Jeeps in the US, but to those not in the know it must sound bananas.  Being a fairly odd option on a fairly common car, they’re like solar eclipses.  Very rare if you’re in one specific spot on earth, but fairly common on Earth in general.   (A solar eclipse takes place somewhere on Earth every 18 months.  Google it if you like, but I’m a space nerd and I know I'm right.)  If you stick your nose in any parts catalog involving US market Jeeps, there is an alarming number of parts that are specific to right hand drive Jeeps.  I used to wonder if it was really worth Jeep's time and effort to design, build, and crash test a car that has a microscopic target audience.  But then I remembered the sun never sets on the British Empire, where they drive on the wrong side of the road for some reason.  

In the land of the free and the home of the brave, Jeep sells, and even outright advertises, RHD Wrangler Unlimiteds.  Complete with instrument clusters prominently displaying freedom units instead of metric malarky.  Jeeps, particularly Wranglers, are pretty handy when it comes to rough roads and foul weather.  So when duty calls, rural letter carriers call upon Jeep to supply them the goods.  Why rural postal employees have to supply their own vehicle is beyond me.  (Are you a USPS employee with information?  Please reach out!)  A 2023 Jeep Wrangler Unlimited RHD starts at $47,290 before options, so clearly being a rural letter carrier pays well. Unlike every other Wrangler variant, the RHD Jeep Wrangler Unlimited has a very, very short list of options.  (Automatic, 2.0L Turbo, and black cloth interior only)  However it has a very long list of colors available for only $495 more.  So please pick High Velocity Yellow or Punk’n Metallic.  If you sell it on Bring a Trailer when you retire it from postal duty, you might actually turn a profit.  

As a parts counterman, anytime I took a call about a Jeep part where RHD or LHD mattered, I was sure to ask what side the steering wheel was on.  Though I never had a customer working on one, I knew karma would ruin my day eventually.  It would have been on a Friday, naturally. The wrong serpentine belt would have been delivered minutes before we closed for a glorious summer weekend.  The owner would be desperate to go to Grandma’s house in Chelsea (London, not Massachusetts.) for the weekend and would be loading their RHD Wrangler on a boat in an hour.  This is every parts professional's nightmare.  Thankfully, it never happened to me.

I did a search, and sadly there isn’t a single 2023 Wrangler Unlimited RHD sitting on a dealer’s lot anywhere near me.  And while they’re definitely odd cars here in the former British colonies, I’m sure RHD Wranglers roam the left hand side of the road all over the British Empire.  “No taxation without representation!” the founding Fathers said.  If you’re a rural American, maybe your tax bill goes to the IRS via a Wrangler that thought it was destined for the UK.  That is, until an assembly line worker rudely installed the wrong instrument cluster.  

Car enthusiasts celebrate odd cars, but usually only the ones with formerly undesirable colors or weird options.  Let’s all take a minute and celebrate one that truly embraces the mantra of function over form by putting the steering wheel on the wrong side so a letter carrier can slide your tax return check into your mailbox just a bit easier.  If you keep your eyes peeled while you're out ducking and waving at fellow Jeep drivers, you might come across one...