Joose Up Your Jeep with a New Shade of Orange, Or Kick Back a Lil' Mojito

We’ll admit it, only to deny it later: We follow Jeep’s ever-changing paint palette with the undue attention some of us secretly devote to reality television. We cheered when not-pink Tuscadero returned last spring and mourned the loss of Bikini Blue, Mojito! Green, and Punkin’ Metallic. So now we have something to buzz about at the virtual breakfast buffet: A new shade of orange for the Wrangler SUV and Gladiator pickup called Joose Orange. Oh, and Mojito's back, again!

To celebrate 4x4 Day (is that a thing? Someone better tell the Hallmark card people), Stellantis has announced the new breakfast-beverage-inspired color, even though most of the orange juice we drink is yellow. We write about cars for a living, so we can only afford the cheap stuff. Anyway, Joose replaces Punk’n (Get it? Pumpkin? No? Maybe that’s why it’s gone), the last shade of orange that was killed off in 2020.

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Is Joose Orange to bright for this early in the morning? Try Mojito, a day-glow-green color that was available on the Wrangler in 2018, but disappeared from the color palette a while ago. It’s back, and, like Joose, also is available on the Wrangler and Gladiator. In our experience, you need to drink a couple of mojitos before they start to glow quite this brightly.

Now, it’s a little-known fact that Jeep charges extra for anything except basic refrigerator white on the Wrangler and Gladiator (and the rest of its lineup, actually). Most colors, including Mojito, add $595 to the price tag, but Joose Orange, being a limited edition, costs $895. Expensive? Not if you can afford the drink the kind of orange juice that’s actually, y’know, orange. Frankly, we hope everyone will shell out the extra bucks; anything to end the endless parade of white, gray and silver cars marching inexorably out of dealerships.

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If you’re ready to embrace the morning glory, you can order your Joose Orange or Mojito Gladiator, Wrangler or Wrangler 4xe right now. Our guess, based on past performance, is that both will stay in the color palette for a couple of years, and if you miss it, don’t worry; orange and green always come back. Perhaps the orange will return as Saffron, or maybe Apricot, or how about Safety Orange to match your high-visibility vest? Anyone want to start a pool? We’ve got twenty bucks on tangerine, and you’d better believe we’ll be watching. Even if we say we aren’t. And a brand born from military vehicles is bound to drag itself back to the green well every now and then; oh wait, it already did so this year, with the special-edition Willys '41...