“Cheap Jeep” – Our Shop 2012 Jeep JKU Build

The Grocery Store Jeep That Started It All

Cheap Jeep began as a spontaneous grocery-store auction win and quickly became one of the most important vehicles in our history. What started as a surprise bid on an MW3 Edition Wrangler grew into a cornerstone of our product development, testing, and family adventures — a build that continues to shape American Adventure Lab to this day.

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“Cheap Jeep” has one of the most memorable beginnings of any build in our shop. I was walking through a grocery store with my daughter — she was about eight at the time — while keeping an eye on a CoPart auction for a lightly damaged MW3 Edition Wrangler. She noticed me checking my phone and asked what I was doing. When I told her I was watching a Jeep auction, she immediately asked if she could place a bid. The price was still low, so I handed her the phone, thinking nothing would come of it. She tapped the bid button once… then again… and we both laughed at the idea that we were “bidding on a Jeep” in the middle of the frozen-food aisle. But then the countdown hit zero — and we realized her bid had actually won.

We’d accidentally bought what was essentially a Rubicon in disguise — Dana 44s, lockers, 4:1 transfer case, the whole package — hidden under MW3 badging that most bidders overlooked. We brought it home, named it Cheap Jeep, and that spontaneous moment in a grocery store turned into a foundational part of our family and our company. Tens of thousands of dollars and countless adventures later, this Jeep has shaped product ideas, fueled testing trips, and become one of the most meaningful vehicles in the AAL story.