Tricky GuRi

Jeep is well known for producing special editions of its go-anywhere, do-anything  Wrangler, although these might be the first created specifically for France. As an automotive marketing partner for Salon Nautique de Paris—the Paris Boat Show—Jeep enlisted the help of design firm Style & Design of Maurepas, France, to create this pair of “Nautic” concept vehicles based on the four-door Wrangler Unlimited. Both feature a 200-hp, 302-lb-ft, 2.8-liter turbo-diesel mated to a six-speed manual transmission.

Leather, Leather, Everywhere

The Wrangler Nautic White is inspired by the world of sailing, and offers “all the comfort, design, and elegance of a sailing boat,” according to Jeep’s ever-so-slightly hyperbolic press release. The Nautic White edition features bright-white leather on the seating surfaces, steering wheel, manual shift boot, and passenger grab handle, and is fitted with “deck-finish” (read: teak-look) faux wood trim on the steering wheel spokes, dash and door trim, center console, and floor mats. On the outside, the Nautic White edition gets a chrome grille, white taillight surrounds, white bumpers, and more teak-style “deck finish” trim for the running boards and cargo cover. Open the cargo cover, and you’ll find more decking on the cargo floor. Gleaming chrome is slathered on the door handles, mirrors, fuel-filler ring, and the outer rim of the spare-tire cover. The face of the spare cover and even the fenders are covered in white leather, thereby ensuring that the concept’s gleaming 20-inch wheels will never, ever slog through mud, negotiate a boulder, or ford any water deeper than the beads of condensation that fall from bystanders’ chilled martini glasses. Once they arrive at the boating club, occupants can lounge on the pair of included white canvas chairs under a matching canvas awning that affixes to the cargo area posts. The only thing missing? An actual sail.

The Wrangler Nautic Black concept is intended to evoke a more motorized, yachting lifestyle, and is essentially a photo negative of the Nautic White with more or less the same modifications rendered in “navy black”—save the wood-grained appliqués, which are the same natural hue.

You Didn’t Expect French-Designed Jeeps to be Butch, Did You?

We know what you’re thinking: Only in France could a vehicle as rugged as a Jeep Wrangler be ninnified to this extent. Still, while we won’t get the chance to see them up close—our credentials for the Paris Boat Show were, uh, lost in le poste— we have to admit that they look pretty stunning. We can even think of a few marinas on our side of the pond where they would fit right in, but Jeep firmly asserts that the pair will remain concepts.