AUBURN HILLS, Mich. — The wildest of concept vehicles generally spend their lives on auto show turntables, gleaming but static examples of automotive reverie.

Not the Jeeps that Fiat Chrysler Automobiles cranks out every spring for the Easter Jeep Safari out in sunny Moab, Utah.

“It’s not just got to look good, it’s got to be fully functional,” said Mark Allen, the head of design for Jeep and the brains behind some of the most outlandish projects to come out of Auburn Hills.

WATCH: Jeep shows off Easter Safari concepts

This year Mr. Allen, his team of designers, and his colleagues at FCA’s in-house parts brand Mopar built seven concept off-roaders, which were shown to the media Tuesday at company headquarters.

Among them were five heavily modified versions of the brand new Jeep Wrangler, a lifted Jeep Renegade, and a fully restored 1965 Jeep Wagoneer with beefed up running gear and a 5.7-liter Hemi engine. The vehicles tend to combine a mixture of currently available Mopar accessories, concept parts, and one-off design work.

By the weekend, all of those rigs will be out on the trails of Moab along with thousands of off-road enthusiasts from around the country.

Besides being a fun project that generates a lot of good press — and a lot of smiles — Jeep’s participation is also a sort of market research.

“The importance for us is really to go be with our enthusiasts, the people that really drive the brand,” Mr. Allen said. “We like to go out and see what people are doing with Jeeps, how they’re enjoying them.”

Those conversations and insights are then taken back to Auburn Hills, where they can help guide the Jeep and Mopar teams on future products.

That was certainly the case on the new Wrangler. Officials said that, when they were conceiving the next generation of the Toledo-built vehicle, they looked back on some of what their hardcore fans wanted.

“We baked a lot of those conversations into what we did on the Wrangler. Either there’s something people don’t like about it, think they can improve — they want to talk to us about that,” Mr. Allen said. “I’m listening.”

This year’s concept Jeeps include:

• The Jeep 4Speed, a two-door Wrangler that’s been cut down and outfitted with a number of carbon fiber components in an extreme case study on lightweighting. Engineers cut out so much weight, in fact, that the vehicle gains 2 inches of ride height.
• The B-Ute, a Jeep Renegade that’s been equipped with Jeep Performance Parts’ 1.5-inch lift kit and unique front and rear fascias.
• The Jeepster, a modified Wrangler Rubicon that gets two-tone paint, a chopped and raked windshield, concept half-doors, and a bunch of goodies from Jeep Performance Parts. The most striking part of the design is a concept fastback hardtop that’s meant to evoke the slanted back of the 1966 Jeepster.
• The J-Wagon, an even more citified version of the upscale Wrangler Sahara that hides its off-road extras in a super-premium package.
• The Nacho, a Wrangler Rubicon wearing the production cheese-dip-yellow paint option and about $14,000 worth of Mopar parts, including a 2-inch lift, soon-to-be-available tube doors, and a performance hood that includes a closeable cold-air-intake flap. There’s also some concept parts, including a light antenna on the back that uses LEDs to signal the vehicle’s speed in night trail riding.
• The Wagoneer Roadtrip, a resto-modded 1965 Wagoneer with a stretched wheelbase, custom fender flares and a sublime soft green paint Jeep is calling Mintage. 
• The Sandstorm, an ambitious Wrangler concept set up as a street-legal Baja racing rig that can blast across the desert at high speed. The vehicle gets heavy-duty axles and modifications that allow for several inches of extra wheel travel.

While there are no plans to build any of these Jeeps from the factory, they are meant to show off the brand’s portfolio’s customization options. And some may hint — however slightly — at future ambitions for the Jeep brand. That seemed particularly true of the race-ready Sandstorm.

“That’s a facet or aspect of off-road we want to cultivate a little more,” Mr. Allen said. “It’s something we’re not really known for, but I want to start that conversation and get people’s reaction to it.”

This year is a big one for the Jeep brand, with both the new Wrangler and significantly refreshed Cherokee launching in North America, and the debut of the range topping Grand Commander in China. Jeep is also rolling out the new Compass, which went on sale here last year, across Europe. Meanwhile, work will begin later this spring to begin retooling part of the Toledo Assembly Complex to build the upcoming Wrangler-based pickup. Development work also continues on the full-size Wagoneer and Grand Wagoneer, which are expected to be in the market by the end of 2020.

Mike Manley, chief executive officer of the Jeep brand, said on Tuesday that Jeep brand sales through February were up 10 percent in North America, while the company has also posted more significant gains in other markets. Mr. Manley said year to date sales are up 26 percent in Latin America, and 33 percent in Europe.

“I think [it’s] a reasonable start for the year but you know for us we’ve been public in terms of what we hope to be able to achieve this year,” he said. “So there’s a long, long way to go. But I’m relatively pleased with the start that we’ve had and I’m very pleased with the response so far for the Compass.”

Officials have previously said they want Jeep to break the 2 million global sales mark this year. The company sold about 1.4 million Jeeps globally in 2016. 

Contact Tyrel Linkhorn at tlinkhorn@theblade.com, 419-724-6134, or on Twitter @TyrelLinkhorn.

First Published March 20, 2018, 10:09 p.m.