New Jeep J8 wows drivers at Euro Camp Jeep

Posted on Friday, September 5th, 2008 at 4:13 PM EDT.

The Jeep J8 is now available in eastern and western European markets, as well as in the Middle East, Asia and Latin America. The J8 is designed to be a hard-working multipurpose vehicle in humanitarian, commercial, government and military applications.

Nathalie Bauters, Manager, International Communications, says the J8 was extremely popular with journalists when it was unveiled at the 8th annual Euro Camp Jeep event in northern Germany.

NATHALIE BAUTERS—“We introduced at Euro Camp Jeep this year the Jeep J8, which is a utilitary vehicle for humanitarian commercial purposes. We also offered the opportunity for journalists from all over Europe to test-drive this vehicle on a portion of the Jeep Challenge course for the first time.”

It’s a win-win for the Jeep brand, and for the journalists, because there are plenty of stories that are generated from Euro Camp Jeep.

NATHALIE BAUTERS—“This year’s event, we use it as a “first drive” opportunity for the Jeep J8. We also had some other extreme vehicles there, and we also had the Jeep Extreme Rescue vehicle, which is a concept vehicle that was also available for the journalists to take a drive in. This is an opportunity for us to leverage of what’s been put in place by our marketing colleagues for this fantastic customer event that allows us to get more return on the investment since we get enormous coverage after this event.”

It’s obvious why the J8 was introduced at Euro Camp Jeep—the event is the largest customer event of its kind in Europe.

NATHALIE BAUTERS—“It’s an excellent opportunity to experience the Jeep passion, for the brand and for the products, is all about. And, you’d be surprised to see the vehicles that drive up, from long distances, from as far as Greece and Spain, to come to our events.”

Nearly 1,600 Jeep® enthusiasts gathered this year for eight days, allowing Jeep aficionados and their families to explore a full range of activities and experiences with fellow Jeep fans. It is the ultimate lifestyle event for owners of Jeep brand vehicles.

As in previous years, Euro Camp Jeep is not just about cars. At this year’s event there was a definite “green theme.”

NATHALIE BAUTERS—“This year’s Euro Camp Jeep was the first C02 emission neutral Camp Jeep. In true Jeep tradition, we try to give back to the community, and we want to give back to the places where we have been driving with the Jeep vehicles. This year we chose an organization that plants trees in the region in northern Germany.”

Participants even had a chance to take home a reminder of their green efforts.

NATHALIE BAUTERS—“’Green is the New Black.’ This T-shirt was used as a little giveaway at one of our activities and relates to the community project where we donated a certain sum of money that corresponds to planting trees, because this year’s Euro Camp Jeep is C02 neutral event. We ended up planting over 1,000 trees, because also each participant had the opportunity to register for additional trees if they wanted to do so. So, in total, we planted over 1,000 trees and this was just a little memento from that activity.”

And, plans are already in the works for Euro Camp Jeep ’09.

NATHALIE BAUTERS—“We start announcing the dates and location of the event early in the year, so this will probably happen early next year, and then we start making plans, obviously, to start the inviting process for the customer and all the internal participants, but the event traditionally takes place early summer, July, early July.”

The Jeep brand led Chrysler LLC sales outside North America in 2007, accounting for 41 percent of total sales. Jeep sales grew 13 percent for the year, fuelled by strong demand for new models such as the extremely capable Jeep Wrangler and fuel-efficient Compass. The Jeep Grand Cherokee was the sales leader for the brand, and it is the second-highest volume vehicle outside North America for Chrysler LLC.

I’m Pete Misiak reporting.

This entry was posted on Friday, September 5th, 2008 at 4:13 PM EDT and is filed under Company and tagged Video. You can follow any comments to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Comments are currently closed.