We called it. On August 14, six days before the reveal, we predicted on this page that Drop No. 10 would be a Smoky Mountains tribute and that Jeep would bring the Smoky Mountain name back out of its own back catalogue. On August 20, Jeep revealed the 2027 Jeep Wrangler Smoky Mountain on stage at the Great Smoky Mountain Jeep Invasion in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. The name landed, and so did the hood lettering we told people to watch for.
Illustration: the 2017 JK Smoky Mountain Edition and the 2027 JL Smoky Mountain side by side.
The original prediction is still below, word for word and unedited, along with an honest note on the part we got wrong. We publish these before the reveal rather than after, which only means anything if we leave them up either way.
The 2027 Jeep Wrangler Smoky Mountain
Jeep is selling it on atmosphere as much as hardware. The tagline is Break Through the Mist, and the brief is a rig that disappears into a foggy ridgeline rather than shouting at it.
Capability
- 33-inch All-Terrain tires, standard
- Locking rear axle
- Steel rock rails
Exterior
- 17-inch smoky black wheels
- Body-color fender flares
- SMOKY MOUNTAIN side-hood lettering, done tone on tone in a darker shade rather than a contrast color
- Black tow hooks
- Body-color hardtop, standard, and it still comes off
- Eight paint choices, including black, white, red, orange, blue, dark grey and two greens
Interior
- Black cabin with terracotta stitching
- Heated front seats and heated steering wheel, standard
- A Parachute Willys logo embossed on the front seats and a unique shifter medallion
Limited quantities, as with every Twelve 4 Twelve drop. Jeep has not announced pricing. Full details are on Jeep's official Smoky Mountain page.
2017 versus 2027: what carried over, and what Jeep dropped
This is the second Wrangler to wear the Smoky Mountain name, and the first was far more thoroughly equipped than most people remember. Side by side, the through-line is graphics rather than hardware.
| 2017 Smoky Mountain Edition (JK) | 2027 Smoky Mountain (JL) | |
|---|---|---|
| Hood | Power Bulge hood with Smoky Mountain hood decals | SMOKY MOUNTAIN side-hood lettering, tone on tone |
| Wheels | 18-inch polished high-gloss black | 17-inch smoky black |
| Tires | Bridgestone Dueler A/T, P255/70R18 OWL, roughly 32 inches | 33-inch All-Terrain |
| Axles and drivetrain | Dana 30 front, heavy-duty Dana 44 rear · 3.21 standard, 3.73 optional · Command-Trac transfer case, 2.72:1 | Locking rear axle, steel rock rails |
| Tow hooks | Black, front and rear, standard | Black |
| Lighting | LED headlamps and fog lamps, new for the edition | Not specified |
| Tops and flares | Body-color Freedom Top standard, optional Dual Top with Premium Sunrider soft top · body-color fender flares | Body-color hardtop · body-color fender flares |
| Blackout trim | High-gloss black bumper accents, high-gloss black Jeep badge, body-color grille with black accents, black fuel filler door and tail lamp guards | Blackout accents throughout |
| Seats | Black leather, black accent stitching, heated front seats | Black trim, terracotta stitching, heated front seats, Parachute Willys logo |
| Signature fabric | Millennium Topography sport bar fabric, new for the edition | None |
| Other interior | Black leather-wrapped wheel with black stitching · Midnight Star wheel accents, vent rings, grab handles, door handles · wrapped armrests and console lid · Power Convenience Group · sport bar grab handles | Heated steering wheel, unique shifter medallion |
| Also included | Side steps, deep tint windows | Not specified |
| Colors | Five: Billet Silver, Black, Bright White, Granite, Rhino | Eight, dark and bright |
| MSRP at launch | $34,345 Wrangler · $38,145 Unlimited, both excluding $1,095 destination | Not yet announced |
| Volume | Roughly 6,500, of which only about 300 were two-door | Limited, number not announced |
Three things stand out.
The 2017 was the more loaded car. Dana 44 rear, LED lighting, leather, side steps, deep tint, an optional dual-top setup and a long list of interior detailing. Jeep has not published an equivalent list for 2027, so this may narrow once full specs land, but on what is public today the older car reads richer.
The wheels got smaller, and that is a compliment. The 2017 ran 18-inch polished wheels on P255/70R18 tires, which stand about 32 inches. The 2027 drops to 17s and goes up to 33s. That is a real trade of showroom shine for sidewall, and sidewall is what helps on rock. The old one looked the part in a parking lot. The new one is specified like something meant to leave one.
Jeep dropped the topography. The 2017 carried Millennium Topography sport bar fabric, contour lines right there in the cabin, and Jeep called it out as new at the time. The 2027 has no equivalent and leans entirely on blackout treatment and lettering. Whether that reads as restraint or as a missed opportunity probably depends on how much you liked the old one.
One footnote worth recording: Jeep never issued a national press release for the 2017 Smoky Mountain Edition. It is absent from the Stellantis newsroom, though it appears in factory trim data and carries its own Mopar part numbers. The 2027 car gets a stage, a video and a national campaign. The name has been promoted.
How our prediction held up
The name: right. We argued Jeep would revive the Smoky Mountain nameplate. It did.
The hood graphics: right, and more specifically right than we expected. Our whole case rested on the 2017 JK Wrangler Smoky Mountain Edition and the decals it wore on its Power Bulge hood. The 2027 car does the same thing: SMOKY MOUNTAIN reads across the side of the hood, tone on tone, in the same understated treatment. Jeep did not just reuse the name. It reused the graphic idea.
What we got wrong, sort of: we said to watch for a topographic contour map, the way the 2016 Black Bear Edition carried a map of Black Bear Pass on its hood. No contour map appeared. But the instinct was not pulled out of thin air: the 2017 Smoky Mountain wore Millennium Topography sport bar fabric, so topography was already part of this nameplate's design language. Jeep had the option and chose not to use it. We would have liked the map. Jeep disagreed.
One correction to our own August 14 text: we wrote that the 2017 edition "came in dark colors." That was only partly right. It was offered in five, including Bright White and Billet Silver alongside Black, Granite and Rhino. The preserved text below is left as published rather than quietly fixed.
Everything below this line is exactly as we published it on August 14, before the reveal.
What was confirmed before the reveal
Jeep's Twelve 4 Twelve program marks the brand's 85th anniversary with twelve limited-edition Wranglers, one released each month from November 2025 through October 2026. If you want the full run and the drop calendar, we keep that in our guide to all twelve Twelve 4 Twelve special editions.
Nine had arrived: Moab 392, Whitecap, the 85th Anniversary Edition, Willys 392, Rockslide, Rewind, America250, Sarge, and Laredo.
Drop No. 10 was originally set for August 12. It moved to August 20 at the Invasion, according to MoparInsiders. Nothing suggested a production or supplier problem. It read as a marketing decision: put the reveal in front of thousands of Wrangler owners standing in one parking lot rather than in a press release nobody attends.
The venue was the tell
Jeep did not move this drop to a random show. It moved it to the Smoky Mountains.
Every one of the first nine went out online. Choosing to stage the tenth at a specific event, in a specific mountain range, is a decision somebody made on purpose. When a brand goes to that trouble, the location is usually part of the message.
Our prediction, as published August 14
Here is our read, and we want to be clear that it is a read and not a leak. We have no inside information and neither does anyone else outside Jeep.
We think Drop No. 10 is a Smoky Mountains tribute, and we would not be surprised to see the Smoky Mountain name come back.
The reasoning is less about the mountains and more about what this program has actually been doing all year. Look at the nine again: Willys, Laredo, Sarge, Rewind. Those are not new ideas. They are old Jeep nameplates and old Jeep styling pulled forward for an anniversary year. This program has spent nine months mining Jeep's own back catalogue.
And there is a Smoky Mountain nameplate sitting in that catalogue.
The precedent nobody was talking about
In 2017, Jeep built a Wrangler Smoky Mountain Edition on the JK, named directly after the Great Smoky Mountains. It came in dark colors, and it wore a Smoky Mountain decal on the side of its power bulge hood. The hood decal still shows up in Mopar parts catalogues under part number 6KC651A5AA, and by most accounts somewhere around 6,500 were built.
That is the single best argument for our prediction. An 85th-anniversary program built on reviving old nameplates, a reveal deliberately staged in the Great Smoky Mountains, and a real Smoky Mountain Wrangler already in the history books.
It would also not be the first time Jeep named a Wrangler after a mountain. The 2016 Wrangler Black Bear Edition was named for Black Bear Pass, the Jeep Badge of Honor trail above Telluride, Colorado. The 2009 Rocky Mountain Edition did the same thing seven years earlier, with its own decals and badging.
Place-name Wranglers are a real Jeep habit, not a coincidence. That Black Bear look is one we cut ourselves, in matching hood and fender sets.
Get the look without the limited run
Most people reading this will not land one. They are limited, and the ones that sell out get flipped. A 2017 Unlimited Smoky Mountain listed at $38,145 new and still trades around the high teens nine years later, which tells you these names hold on.
The useful part is that the thing making a Smoky Mountain look like a Smoky Mountain is lettering on the side of the hood. Not a powertrain, not an axle. Vinyl. That is the one item on the spec sheet you can add to the Wrangler already in your driveway, and it is what we cut all day in our South Carolina shop.
Our custom hood lettering is cut to your text in the size and color you pick, so a tone-on-tone dark grey on a dark hood is entirely doable if that understated look is what you are after.
Jeep Decal Store sells individual cut letters and original designs. We do not sell trademarked names or logos, and we are not affiliated with or endorsed by FCA US LLC.
Where it was revealed
The reveal happened at the Great Smoky Mountain Jeep Invasion, August 20 to 22 at the LeConte Center in Pigeon Forge. Admission is sold at the gate only, per day, with no advance tickets. We wrote up the dates, the real ticket costs, and what to expect in our guide to the Smoky Mountain Jeep Invasion.
Frequently asked questions
What is the tenth Twelve 4 Twelve Wrangler?
The 2027 Jeep Wrangler Smoky Mountain, revealed August 20, 2026 at the Great Smoky Mountain Jeep Invasion in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee.
What comes on the 2027 Wrangler Smoky Mountain?
Standard 33-inch All-Terrain tires, a locking rear axle and steel rock rails, with 17-inch smoky black wheels, body-color fender flares, SMOKY MOUNTAIN side-hood lettering, black tow hooks and a body-color hardtop. Inside it has a black cabin with terracotta stitching, heated front seats, a heated steering wheel, a Parachute Willys logo embossed on the front seats and a unique shifter medallion. Eight paint colors are offered.
How does the 2027 Smoky Mountain differ from the 2017 edition?
The 2017 JK Smoky Mountain Edition ran 18-inch polished high-gloss black wheels on P255/70R18 Bridgestone Dueler A/T tires, a Dana 30 front and heavy-duty Dana 44 rear axle, a Command-Trac transfer case, LED headlamps and fog lamps, black leather with black accent stitching, side steps, deep tint windows and Millennium Topography sport bar fabric, in five colors. The 2027 car moves to 17-inch smoky black wheels with 33-inch All-Terrain tires, terracotta stitching and eight paint choices, and it drops the topography fabric. Both share a body-color hardtop, body-color fender flares, black tow hooks, heated front seats and a Smoky Mountain hood graphic.
What size tires did the 2017 Smoky Mountain Edition have?
P255/70R18 Bridgestone Dueler A/T outlined white letter tires, which stand roughly 32 inches, on 18-inch polished high-gloss black wheels. The 2027 car runs 33-inch All-Terrain tires on 17-inch wheels.
Does the 2027 Wrangler Smoky Mountain have a hood decal?
Yes. It carries SMOKY MOUNTAIN lettering across the side of the hood, applied tone on tone in a darker shade rather than a contrasting color. It is the same treatment idea Jeep used on the 2017 JK Smoky Mountain Edition.
How much does the 2027 Wrangler Smoky Mountain cost?
Jeep has not announced pricing. For reference, the 2017 Smoky Mountain Edition launched at $34,345 for the Wrangler and $38,145 for the Wrangler Unlimited, both excluding a $1,095 destination charge. We will update this page when 2027 pricing is confirmed.
What colors did the 2017 Smoky Mountain Edition come in?
Five: Billet Silver, Black, Bright White, Granite and Rhino.
Why was the tenth Twelve 4 Twelve drop delayed?
Jeep moved the reveal from August 12 to August 20 to stage it in front of a live Jeep audience at the Invasion rather than announcing it online. Nothing was reported suggesting a production, engineering or supplier problem with the vehicle.
What is the Jeep Twelve 4 Twelve program?
It is Jeep's 85th anniversary celebration: twelve limited-edition Wranglers, one revealed each month from November 2025 through October 2026. The first nine were Moab 392, Whitecap, the 85th Anniversary Edition, Willys 392, Rockslide, Rewind, America250, Sarge and Laredo.
Was there ever a Jeep Wrangler Smoky Mountain Edition before this one?
Yes. Jeep built a Wrangler Smoky Mountain Edition on the JK generation in 2017, with Smoky Mountain decals on its Power Bulge hood. The hood decal is still listed in Mopar parts catalogues under part number 6KC651A5AA. Roughly 6,500 were built, of which only about 300 were two-door.
Has Jeep named other Wranglers after places?
Often. The 2016 Black Bear Edition was named for Black Bear Pass in Telluride, Colorado, and carried a topographical map of the trail on its hood. The 2009 Rocky Mountain Edition came with its own decals and badging. The Moab 392, the first Twelve 4 Twelve drop, continues the habit.
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