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2025 Jeep Wrangler 4xe Willys ’41 edition charges for heritage

Stephen Edelstein - Green Car Reports

Jeep is giving its Wrangler 4xe plug-in hybrid a heritage-inspired costume for the 2025 model year.

The Wrangler is the modern Jeep closest in spirit to the original military Jeeps of World War II, and the 2025 Jeep Wrangler 4xe Willys ’41 drives that point home with olive drab paint and 17-inch aluminum wheels (with 33-inch all-terrain tires) meant to look like the steel wheels of the original military-spec Willys MB.

The special edition also wears “Willys/4xe” hood-side decals in drab blue, which Jeep says is a reference to the stenciling applied to World War II Jeeps at the factory. The interior features tan cloth seats, an olive drab fabric dashboard insert, and a shifter medallion. A body-color hardtop or tan soft top are available, and steel bumpers and a rear locker are included as standard equipment.

2025 Jeep Wrangler 4xe Willys ’41

While the modern Jeep brand can legitimately claim this World War II heritage as its own, it’s worth remembering that Willys-Overland, the automaker being nodded to here, didn’t create the Jeep.

Willys participated in an Army design contest, but the chosen design was closest to the prototype submitted by American Bantam. Nor was Willys the exclusive manufacturer of World War II Jeeps—Ford made many as well. But it chose to build civilian versions, trademarking the Jeep name even before World War II was over and thus becoming the corporate predecessor of the brand we know today.

Those original Jeeps also had 4-cylinder engines, so a parallel can be drawn with the Wrangler 4xe’s 2.0-liter turbo-4, which works with an 8-speed automatic transmission, a pair of electric motors, and a mechanical four-wheel-drive system similar to the one in other Wrangler models. Output is 375 hp and 470 lb-ft of torque, while a 17-kwh battery pack provides an EPA-rated 21 miles of electric range.

2025 Jeep Wrangler 4xe Willys ’41

The Willys ’41 edition costs $61,825 with the mandatory $1,895 destination fee. Other changes are minimal for the 2025 model year, which follows a 2024 refresh that gave the 4xe a significant price cut by adding a lower-cost Sport S trim level.

The Wrangler 4xe has been a top seller since its arrival, but the road hasn’t been without bumps. Jeep last month announced a recall of 194,000 plug-in hybrid SUVs, including both Wrangler 4xe and Grand Cherokee 4xe models, after 13 reports of battery fires. This follows a 2023 recall of Wrangler 4xe models, also because of an increased battery-fire risk.

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