Behind The Scenes With Our New 2020 Jeep Gladiator Products!
If you’re as excited as we are to see the great new Fab Fours parts for the 2020 Jeep Gladiator rolling out, have we got a fantastic video for you!
Check out this clip below where Greg Higgs goes over all the new Fab Fours Gladiator parts including the amazing Overland Rack, tube doors, rear fender system, and more.
The Overland rack is a particularly incredible piece designed for overlanding in your Gladiator, allowing you to customize it just as you desire.
Greg explains how the rack can be used now and what you’ll be able to do with it in the future as Fab Fours continues to develop factory-fit upgrades and accessories for the Jeep JT, JL, and Gladiator!
I’m Greg Higgs, founder of Fab Fours and I’m also very passionate about the product development process.
I mean, I love sketching stuff late into the night and then letting my team bring it to life.
We have six dedicated resources focus on nothing but R and D, so we are developing SKUs for trucks, Jeeps, everything in between, and all our different brands.
So I’ll take you into this area building one and we will go product by product to show you what’s up.
All right, well thank you Jeep for not making the Gladiator’s doors differently.
You never know, sometimes they change stuff that doesn’t have any value to the customer.
In this case we lucked out; the JL tube doors fit the JT and as before, these are the best.
I mean, it’s reflected in the price; it’s also reflected in the sound.
This is so solid and we pull that off by having a specifically engineered spot and durometer to an edge trim that’s gonna keep that thing locked in.
Rattling tube doors are unacceptable and that’s what you get with a $299 tube door – rattles.
So if you don’t want a bungee cord or something wedged in there all the time, up your game.
Fab Fours has got you covered – these things are solid.
Front and rear sold separately and a mere bracket, so there’s a lot of ways to get this done based on aftermarket mirrors or running genuine OE – we’ve got a bracket for you either way.
All right, here we go with the first look at our rack for the JT – this thing’s pretty cool and it just keeps getting better.
So first off, what you see is what you get – a nice big rack.
It’s got a top deck where you can continue adding crossbars, make it basically as dense as you want to depending on what tent style you might want to run or if you’re gonna put a tire up there ;or various other things, tubs, whatever, so that part is cool.
These will be sold separately in addition to the four that you’re provided to put different bars across the top.
Furthermore, we left ourselves a lot of options for moving forward with the standardized pattern all across this.
We will be able to add all sorts of Jerry Can racks, side things, high lifts, shovels, you name it; holes everywhere to keep those options open.
Now, one of the cool things about this, there’s a vision for a secondary long rack.
So right now, we kept this completely behind the cab, very handy if you want to be able to remove all your tops.
If you haven’t seen it or touched them, these are shockingly light, it’s not like the old Jeep tops, you could do this by yourself.
So to be able to pull that whole thing off, we wanted to keep it behind the cab but if you’re going full-on overlander, you’re gonna want that full rack.
The way that will work, since this was all included in the first unit, this will become the front.
But to look sweet and low back here, just above the cab height we actually need to get higher, so the third piece will then be a jog which becomes the back rack.
So you’ll have a continuous over height where this becomes the front and the rear gets you an extra step up, really cool modular that way.
So you’re getting this out of the box; if you wanted to add to it later to go full length, you can.
This is going to hold duallys on the side and two dually lights across the back; both the back and the front are bolt-on plates.
Now we know in that overlanding community, whatever you get is really the canvas, it’s not necessarily the finished product.
There’s a lot of after-modifications, even aftermarket parts – we’re happy to see that.
Let your imagination go wild: two clamps, extra holes, drill it where you need to, add what you want, that’s the cool thing about overlanding.
You know the gear you want to carry; you’re gonna build the rig right for your purposes.
We just gave you a great foundation to get you above and as long as you’re gonna need to build that rack out, perfect for you.
Okay, most the time you’re gonna see all these products finished.
In fact, on our whirlwind today you saw a lot of filthy ones because we’ve been out to Moab so they’re so covered in dust or they’re daily drivers.
Well, this is where it all starts; they’re always going to come in raw.
One of the advantages again, being in-house, we’ve got a team of design, we’ve got our own plant.
So to be able to get these parts turned around in 24-hours allows us to do as many prototypes as needed to deliver the perfect part.
Trust me, lesser bumper companies that are borrowing cars, they have to cut corners because you can’t always test fit again when you got to get them.
We’ve got a couple JT’s here, we’ve got numerous JLs, and any HD you could ever want and the equipment out back – you’re going to get the perfect part – and this is not easy to execute.
Jeep, they send you with their data; they don’t want to compete with us in the aftermarket with their Mopar brand, so we got to do it ourselves, scan the trucks, none of that’s easy.
This is perfectly executed; I’m leaving from here right now because I’m seeing them for the first time ;to go congratulate that design engineer on a well executed part.
High fit and finish, base fender system, and a bolt-on flare, which again in the full-width version, allows this overlay for a different color match.
Really cool – I’m guessing this is a one-and-done prototype actually, so good job Matthew.
Okay, just like the light slider step for the JL, the only thing light about it is that it holds rock lights.
All 3/16” construction, the Gladiator step system is a full wheel-to-wheel while not encroaching on the tire size space.
All of our products progressively get more narrow to maximize tire size.
It’s got the same integrated steps, holds the rock lights casting the light on the ground the proper way, and has all the rigidness that you need to support the entire vehicle – really cool.
You can see this sliding right up into again our base and fender system, this time without the gill box so it shows you this base fender skin, which is provided actually at a 16 gauge, just to give you kind of a color change option there.
But man, these things look sweet in color match, so it already had an OE feel just the way that we’re able to integrate the LED lights to the fender system; but once you put that color match on – Game Changer – it’s really a cool piece.
All right, the cool thing about the JL and now the Gladiator, man you can fit big tires on these things.
You can run 37’s with literally no lift if you’ve got the Rubicon flares.
Our flares all take things higher and tighter to not be the tire size limiter; it’s always gonna be the body side.
But this ;with just a four inch lift – thanks Skyjacker for the sweet coilover lift kit on this thing – running 40’s.
Yeah – full flex, letting the sway bar off, you’re going to get into the flares.
Let’s be honest, most of the driving leagues commuting in these and even the mall-crawling which has way less negative connotation now than it used to, this is just a fun vehicle.
And to be able to run 40’s while keeping the overall ride height low, it’s just totally awesome.
So all of a sudden, we don’t look so crazy for having a 40/15/5 on a 24 x 12 with a negative 51 offset.
So this is a Jeep-specific lug pattern; you get all the same features where you’re able to integrate our rings to take what’s this classic simple design and make it as crazy as you want using our integrated ring system.
And, we’ve shown in prior videos there’s actually a lot of utility to those, both for letting them be the sacrificial scratching surface while off-road, but also we found you could use them to high lift right off the ring without doing any damage to any of the wheel.
That’s a lot easier when you’re lifting directly where you need to if you have to reset a bead or something.
So our 40” tire, the Chimera, it’s a directional tread Mud Terrain and we have been taking these things to Moab.
You’re not gonna be able to air down as crazy low when you’ve got this wide offset, so what you’re trading off for the real cool look on the street is gonna need you to keep around 12-14 psi off-road – but – depends where you’re going.
If you’re wheeling out at Moab or somewhere, Slick Rock, you’re gonna have all the traction you need so you get the best of both worlds.
This is a great tire for your 95% on-road use; I mean, that’s what it’s intended for, ¾-ton and down to have that smooth ride, something you can balance out and just look really good.
Whether you’re trail riding with your 2020 Jeep Gladiator or leisurely overlanding with it, a well-equipped vehicle with all the body armor and accessories you need will ensure you get the most enjoyment from it.
With the Overland Rack designed and produced exclusively by Fab Fours plus the many other great Jeep parts we offer for the Gladiator, you can build up yours to fit your specific trail riding style!