This ain’t no “clunker.”

Terry Hazelton of hazeltonsound.com of East Troy, Wis., put on a couple hundred thousand miles on his 1996 Jeep Cherokee Classic. He also outfitted it with a rockin’ sound system, one that even took some honors from Sound Performance Lab (SPL).

Maybe a high-end sound system and an offroad Jeep don’t seem to go together, but after all those miles on and off road, Hazelton “retired” the Jeep to make it his on-road-only “daily driver” and to take it to car audio events. But Hazelton said he’d occasionally take the Cherokee offroad, but do it “carefully.”

For Hazelton, the four-wheeler became “too much fun not to drive.”

The ’96 Jeep even won a few awards along the way, including a most honorable mention in the SUV/CUV category from Restyling magazine, plus sound system and even best paint job. The “True Flame” design with tribal overlay was created and applied by Hazelton’s brother, tattoo artist Dan Hazelton, who gave it as a wedding present to Terry. Dan used House of Color paints and clear coat in the process.

He lifted the Jeep with a 4.5" Rough Country lift lit with help from Huck’s Four Wheel Drive in Franklin, Wis. He put on a set of 15" 2000 Jeep Wrangler OEM Canyon Rims, which sported 33" Yokohama Geolander tires, mounted with 1-3/4"wheel spacers. Up front is a Westin brush guard. On top, a Safari rack with amber LED underbody kit around the top as safety lights.

He added on 2000 Jeep Cherokee side mirrors, center console and door panels. Hazelton also installed a K&N intake kit. Add on aftermarket projector headlights, clear side markers, amber strobe lights in the marker lights and headlight wig-wags, and there’re the looks.

That’s the outside story.

The inside story was all about the sound, running 1,500 watts at 1 ohm, 148db to the custom SPL ported subwoofers, plus the six 12" Audio Pipe subwoofers. The radio and the amps brought the sound in from Alpine. The power came from an Optima YellowTop battery.