Annual event, right on the Wildwood, New Jersey beach, involved plenty of sun, games, products, fun and, yeah, Jeeps of all kinds.
by Matt Konkle
Managing Editor
For several days leading up to the recent New Jersey Jeep Invasion, Mother Nature did her best to make life tough for Jamie Longmuir and his event staff in Wildwood, New Jersey.
Buckets of rain poured down from the sky and turned a wide-open, sandy beach into a soggy, sloppy mess that forced Longmuir to make several changes to the event location as well as its parking areas.
However, no matter how much rain slammed into the beach, Longmuir and his hard-working staff adjusted their plans so nearly 2,000 Jeeps, 83 vendors, 15 food trucks and all kinds of spectators could successfully, and safely, all fit on the sandy swarth of land just south of the Wildwood Convention Center.
"When we arrived for setup the beach was flooded, so we had to make the choice to move to plan B which was to move the vendor area to the driest part of the beach to keep our vendors and their merchandise nice and dry, unlike last year where we needed ‘NO WAKE’ zones in the vendor area,” Longmuir said in a social media post. “This is not an ideal setup for us, as it makes parking 10X harder for our team, but our team pulled it off, so for those of you that waited a bit of extra time in line to park this year, we apologize but there is no beating MOTHER NATURE.”
The NJJI, now in its 13th year, bills itself as the largest gathering of Jeeps on the East Coast, and is one of only a handful of events that let attendees legally drive and park directly on the beach.
This year’s edition took place July 11-13, and not only saw all those Jeeps show up, but thousands of spectators as well — once again proving to be a solid hit and experience right in the middle of a busy summer.
In fact, besides visiting scores of the industry’s top-tier vendors, participants could also queue up for a beach obstacle course that featured numerous sand hills to overcome, as well as water fording pits and high berm turns. Bernie Gardula, general manager at Rausch Creek Off Road Park in Tremont, Pennsylvania, once again spent most of the week creating the course alongside numerous staff members.
For those newer to the Jeep lifestyle, or just wanting to augment their vehicle knowledge, Off-Road Consulting owner and Quadratec Trail Boss Kyle Buchter held numerous educational seminars and recovery demonstrations.
Additionally, while the NJJI is mainly a homage to Jeep and its community, all event attendees were encouraged to bring some canned food and donate to the Community Food Bank of New Jersey's Southern Branch. Those who did received raffle tickets good towards potentially winning numerous top-end products donated by participating vendors.
The New Jersey Jeep Invasion will return for 2026, and event dates will be released later this year.
