Sacrilege? Jeep to make purple Wranglers

LOS ANGELES -- Brace yourselves, Jeep purists. A new special edition Wrangler being unveiled at the Los Angeles Auto Show is going to be offered in purple.

A purple Jeep? Maybe Santa will paint his sleigh yellow. Maybe its time to rename the Red Sea.

Wranglers, patriotic because of their military origins from World War II and notoriously rugged, are commonly seen in black, white, blue, silver, red and especially desert tan. Now comes what Jeep is calling "Xtreme Purple" in the new 2016 Backcountry special edition that the offroad-oriented brand hopes will be the star of the auto show.

The Jeep Wrangler Backcountry is basically a gussied-up Wrangler Sahara. It has fancy 17-inch black-painted wheels, laser-patterned decals and, oh yes, its purple paint option.

The 2016 Wrangler Backcountry is aimed to appeal to country folk, while the other vehicle to be shown at the show, the Grand Cherokee SRT Night is meant to attract city dwellers.

In keeping with a trend lately to replace chrome with black touches to make SUVs seems more sinister, the Jeep Grand Cherokee SRT Night starts with a black roof. Then the black touches extends to the grille, roof pillars and wide window surrounds. There are fancy 20-inch five-spoke wheels painted in satin black as well.

Jeep Grand Cherokee SRT Night has a 6.4-liter V-8 engine that spits out 475 horsepower. Its top speed is 160 miles per hour.