by Matt Konkle
Managing Editor
The latter days of Jeep’s TJ Wrangler edition were some stormy times for the brand. Not only was then-current owner Daimler-Chrysler in the process of selling its interest to a private equity company, but the vehicle’s sales numbers had remained somewhat stagnant for nearly three straight years.
This left many around the company wondering if Wrangler itself would survive as a viable vehicle.
And yet the brand’s design team, led by a supremely creative mind and self-professed ‘lover of Jeeps’, Mark Allen, was deep into the creation of a new Wrangler that would ultimately help preserve the Wrangler name from disappearing into the mist of history.
Years later, with Wrangler's legacy now solidly in place, Allen, Jeep’s Vice President of Design, recently decided it was time to move on following a nearly 30-year stint at the company.
He leaves a legacy that stretches from California’s Rubicon trail, to the red rocks of Moab, Utah, through suburban Detroit, to wherever Jeeps are sold.
Design cues he implemented, both large and small, are everywhere around the vehicle and are a testament to his influence across every version of Wrangler, as well as Gladiator, Liberty, Cherokee, Grand Cherokee — pretty much Jeep’s entire vehicle stable.
Additionally, dozens of one-off concept vehicles he helped create over the years helped turn events like Moab’s Easter Jeep Safari and the annual Specialty Equipment Market Association show in Las Vegas into must-see occasions.
"I'm incredibly proud of what we've accomplished at Jeep over the past 30 years," Allen said. "We've created some of the most iconic and beloved vehicles in the world, and I'm grateful to have had the opportunity to play a role in that."
Leading Jeep’s design department in the mid-2000s, Allen helped spearhead the Wrangler’s transition from simply a two-door play-toy, into a predominately four-door all-purpose vehicle that now felt just as much at home on the pavement as off.
With that four-door option in place, Wrangler sales grew nearly 49 percent between 2006 and 2007. And four-door sales these days solidly outpaces two-door versions.
“The Wrangler (then) was something that we built and sold in the summer months,” Allen said. “Jeeps were maintained; (Chrysler wasn’t) really pushing it. They would get somebody that was working on whatever and put them in Jeep for a little while, and then move them out.”
“Honestly, without the four-door, we would have probably killed (the Wrangler).” he said. “(The 2-door Wrangler) was never seen as a real big design challenge.”
Allen said he knew he wanted to design cars since he was about five years old and eventually attended Detroit’s College for Creative Studies before applying to an internship at Chrysler in 1993. The company hired him full-time in 1994 with Allen really hoping to stick to the car side, but instead finding himself embedded with Jeep and its truck line.
“I wanted to be a car designer; Jeep was all about trucks,” he said.
While he grew to understand the brand and expand its lineup, it wasn’t until a 2003 trip to Moab and EJS that Allen really began to embrace the Jeep lifestyle and realize why it has such a passionate community.
“The whole vibe of the event really turned the corner for me, and I became a super Jeep enthusiast,” he said. “I had never driven off-road like that before. I was rock-crawling and appreciated the technique and finesse needed. I fell in love.”
Besides his work designing production vehicles for the brand, Allen also became part of the team that created unique, one-off concept vehicles that were quickly ingrained into the landscape of EJS and SEMA.
“It’s super fun for us as designers to work on these vehicles, to put the effort, care and love into them and then show them to people. It’s very rewarding,” he said.
His first venture was the 2004 Jeep KJ Liberator designed for SEMA and later carted into the Utah desert for EJS. From there, the concept program grew each year and is now a highly-anticipated part of each event. In fact, while these concepts will never really see a full production run, they do often have MOPAR production-ready products that can be ordered for Wrangler vehicles. Additionally, some even have ‘hidden in plain sight' cues that are set to be implemented in future Wrangler versions.
Most famous for this was the 2016 Jeep Crew Chief 715 which offered some design elements that would later find their way into the brand’s Gladiator truck.
“We’re finally going to get to do a pickup truck,” Allen said at the time. “I can’t explain too much, but we’ve hidden some hints about what’s going on behind the scenes, right in front of you.”
As the Jeep Wrangler, and the brand itself, continued to evolve and grow in popularity through the 2010s, Allen and his team found innovative ways to peak consumer interest by throwing small ‘Easter Eggs’ into certain vehicles. The first was on the 2011 Grand Cherokee when designers created a tiny Wrangler front-end icon — featuring a grille and headlights — then placed it in the middle of the vehicle’s headlamps.
“There was never a plan (for Easter Eggs),” Allen said. “We do it for our customers because we want them to know that their vehicle was created by an actual person who is passionate about the brand.
”The secret is not to overdo it, not do too many and be too obvious.”
No one really knows how many Easter Eggs have been created over the years, nor does the design staff keep track. And as far as finding them, well, Allen and the Jeep design team won’t say.
“These are for our customers, and I love how thrilled they are when they find them,” he said.
Allen said his personal favorites are the spider on the Jeep Renegade, a project that paired the U.S. and Italian design teams, and the 419 on the Jeep Gladiator tailgate — which pays respect to the men and women who work at the Toledo Assembly Complex.
These days with Jeep Wrangler’s latest version, the JL, now entering its seventh production year, the brand is perhaps in the best shape of its lifespan. It is right at the top in sales performance in Stellatis’ entire vehicle stable as well as having unmatched brand loyalty.
For Allen, his final thought on his time at Jeep simply comes down to hoping one thing: “That I didn’t screw it up.”
But his contribution is surely felt far more than that.
"I hope that when he looks back on his career, he feels the way we do, which is gratification for the legacy he helped to create that will be enjoyed by the world for years to come," said Jeep's Chief Design Officer, Ralph Gilles.
