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An American Expedition Vehicles Jeep Wrangler Unlimited outfitted like this one would cost $66,400, $34,900 more than stock. It has a 5.7-liter Hemi V-8, a 3 1/2" suspension lift and new special styling elements.

WALLED LAKE — Don’t try this at home: Greg Henderson wheels this special Jeep through the parking lots behind American Expedition Vehicles’ building on West Maple Road.

He pitches the jacked-up Jeep Wrangler Unlimited from side to side and vehicle does a reasonable impersonation of a low-slung sports car, seemingly defying the laws of physics. A tall vehicle, made even taller with a 3 1/2″ lift kit from AEV and bigger tires, should not be able to handle high-speed turns like this.

AEV builds the Brute, a Jeep pickup truck conversion.

Next, he goes sort of mini General Lee from the “Dukes of Hazard” TV show and launches the thing off a crest in the pavement. No sports car could survive that, but the AEV Wrangler didn’t even bottom out on its suspension bushings.

For comparison purposes, Henderson took me for a similar ride in his personal Jeep, a much smaller, stock two-door 2005 Wrangler. It felt like one might expect of a Jeep performing extreme on-pavement handling maneuvers: it’s tires fighting for grip and losing. And as Henderson predicted, the stock Wrangler bottomed out its suspension.

The key to AEV’s Jeep suspension kit is the reconfigured suspension geometry, which was designed by former Jeep chassis engineer Jim Frens. Frens owned Nth Degree, a suspension company which is now part of AEV.

Frens, now on staff with AEV, fine tuned the suspension at the Chrysler’s Chelsea Proving Grounds where engineers tested the stock Jeep.

Henderson, an avid off-roader and AEV’s lead technician, said one of the keys to the system is the revised mounting points for the track bar. Where a lot of off-road lift kits use the original mounting points for the track bar, AEV welds on new mounting points, he said. The track bar keeps the differential centered in the vehicle.

“The end result is we get a better ride and better product,” Henderson said.

Contact AEV at www.aev-conversions.com or call (406) 251-2100.

Henderson said the company recently completed a job for a client who had put another company’s aftermarket suspension system on his Jeep.

“He hated the ride,” Henderson said. AEV’s system maintains on-road ride quality while increasing off-road capability.

AEV’s goal was to make a vehicle that is capable of playing on the rocks on the weekend, then serving as a daily driver during the week.

“You can drive this every day to and from work,” Henderson said.

AEV was started by David Harriton in 1997 but the company really took off after it partnered with Quality Metalcraft Inc., a Livonia maker of prototype and aftermarket  parts. AEV had developed a reputation for improving the off-road capability of Jeeps, but it needed an in-house metal fabricator. At the same time, QMC CEO Michael Chetcuti was trying with limited success to develop QMC as a brand to diversify its business beyond the work it was doing for major automakers.

QMC, which was started by Chetcuti’s father Al in 1964, bought into AEV in 2006, the same year it created an umbrella company called Streetcar USA based out of an old powerhouse building in downtown Royal Oak.

“(Partnering with QMC) made us into a major player throughout the world,” Harriton said. “That ended up being a really good blend.”

Today, Harriton continues to do concept development, prototypes and show car builds at his shop in Missoula, Mont. QMC makes the parts and a plant in Walled Lake serves as the primary conversion build center and warehouse.

AEV’s Wrangler has enough suspension travel to handle brutal trails such as the infamous Rubicon while still maintaining on-road handling that is better than stock. After owners are done playing in the rocks and mud, they can still use their AEV Jeep as their daily driver, Henderson said.

Not only are the parts built to OE standards, but they also make AEV’s vehicle look like they could have come straight off the Jeep assembly line. For example, AEV’s Hemi conversion kit for the Wrangler looks completely stock, right down to the coolant overflow bottle specially made for its upgrade kit.

The show vehicle I rode in started life as a $31,500 Wrangler Unlimited four-door. AEV added all of its bells and whistles, from the Hemi conversion to body modifications to the lift kit for $34,900, bringing the total to $66,400 for the works. A basic 3 1/2″ suspension kit starts at $2,200.

Harriton started AEV after he wrote a business plan for an aftermarket suspension company while attending the University of Montana. Harriton had started his education with the intention of getting an engineering degree from the University of the Pacific in California, but he decided that he wanted to move to Montana, so he switched to business school.

“It was a hobby turned business,” said Harriton, who is the CEO of AEV, but also continues to serve as lead designer.

Now, he is working on several projects, including some for Jeeps other than the Wrangler. Harriton, whose company has won several Design Excellence awards at the Specialty Equipment Manufacturers Association show in Las Vegas, said the company will display several new products at this year’s show, Nov. 3-6.

New products include a variable valve timing system for the 5.7-liter Hemi, a new rear bumper, new wheels and skid plates.