I believe the early YJ was the last of the real AMC built Jeeps..
I had an 1988 jeep, which I think was the second year production of the replacement for the CJ.
Off-road-wise, a total piece of shit lol. Had maybe 2” of wheel travel upwards until the axle hit the bump stops. Unfixable (by them) carb problems. Probably a warped head from the factory. A whole bunch of small changes from my buddy’s CJ5/7’s that made the car less cool and less off-road worthy. Like 9”/9.5”w x 30” max height tires fit without mods. Christ.
One would’ve had to cut out the anti-roll bars (dremel bro?) and do a bunch of work to get that thing good at slow-ish mudding and rock crawling.
HOWEVER, it was a decent high(er) speed rally-racer! Unofficially…I never raced but I absolutely beat the piss out of that car. Stiff-ass suspension worked here. Opposite-lock turning on twisty and abandoned dirt roads…yes yes yes! Scared all of my friends except one, who was a fellow adrenaline junkie.
The best rally road we nicknamed
The Road. As in, “Hey man wanna do
The Road this weekend at the lake?”
Jumped it on Pismo beach and got lucky with a
perfect and soft four-point landing. I have no idea how that happened with that crap suspension. Man it would have been bad if it would’ve been a one or two point landing. I think that’s where I broke off a rear Ranchero shock lol, discovered that back home.
Ah youth.
Rallying is what I discovered I really liked anyway.