Ok, so, no one asked, but you're going to hear the evolution of the lore of how Uncle rOmi came to own this particular Jeep. So we RV pretty extensively and have only recently (in the last five years) gotten into the flat towing game. I started with a 2001 Dodge Dakota and learned the ropes in terms of how to RV with a dinghy. The ultimate plan for the wife and I is to travel full time once the girls leave the house and the plan has been to do that in a small Class A with a Jeep as a dinghy. Do the Dakota was a tutorial.
Well, flash forward four years and I get in an accident through no fault of my own and the Dakota gets totaled by the insurance and I decided it's time for the forever vehicle. I'd always wanted a CJ8. Like...always. So I started looking. They have, as I'm sure you know, the flip and tumble back seats but they only have the two doors....just something we'd have tolerate until the girls left the house but after that, with just the wife and the dog and I, two doors would be fine....plus we could take out the back seat altogether and have tons of room.
Then I found out, much to my chagrin that, while you can flat tow a CJ, it is highly recommended that you pull the driveshaft first. It only took me about eleven seconds envisioning trying to pack up in the morning and having to get under the dinghy and dis-freaking-connect the blinker-blanking driveshaft every time we pulled up camp to flush the CJ8 pipe dream down the toilet. And man, I had found a nice one out in Colorado, too. I was looking at flights and taking time off work to fly out and drive it home.
So that's where the JKU came into the picture. I realized it was the same wheelbase as a CJ8 and it had a proper back seat with foot wells and full sized seats....which also fold into the floor making the entire back a platform, just like if I took the seat out of a CJ8. The only draw back in terms of RV'ing is that now I have to find a way to store 4 doors instead of 2, but I think I have an idea for building shelves in a pass through compartment. I also don't have to worry about where to store the back seat when I remove it because the JKU's seats fold into themselves for storage. The JKU can easily be flat towed, the CJ8 can not. And the JKU has a myriad of modern safety features and accessories that the CJ's do not. So after about three months of agonizing and waffling, I pulled the trigger on the JKU and haven't been happier since.
Thus endeth the sermon.
