Welcome Willy 2.0!
Let's meet this great Jeep and owner!
1) Introduce yourself and your Jeep
Hi, my name is Tracie and my Jeep’s name is Willy 2.0, on the regular, known as Willy. She’s a she, as I am, which many times, people don’t know until I tell them. I bought and built Willy 2.0 this last year, and was able to drive her home for the first time in September 2022. I call her Willy 2.0 because before her, I owned a 2014 white Willy’s Jeep.
2) What do you love most about owning a Jeep?
I absolutely love the feeling of the community and camaraderie on the road and now, within the online community. I live for connection and feeling connected to other jeep owners through the Jeep wave, randomly getting ducked, chatting about builds and mods, and now building community and connecting to others all over the world has been the highlight of the last few months for me on this journey.
3) What city or urban area are you closest to?
I live in Oregon near Portland. I moved out here about 12 years ago from central Illinois where I grew up to work for Nike. The Pacific Northwest is so beautiful, so my girlfriend Callie and I started going out on weekends for fun and snapping pictures of our adventures and it has grown into a creative outlet for me to infuse my love of art, brand, photography, and community all into Willy’s social media channels.
4) Off roading isn’t for everyone, but at Urban Jeeping, we believe Jeeps are for everyone. What’s your favorite thing about city crawling?
In Portland, we have some incredible street art, so part of the joy is going out on the hunt to find backdrops for Willy 2.0 around the Portland-metro area. My girlfriend likes to call herself Willy’s location scout and we make a day of it almost every weekend. It brings a smile to my face every time I receive a DM that someone sends me telling me they saw cool street art and it reminded them of Willy.
5) What’s your least favorite thing about driving in a city?
If I had to pick one thing I would probably say street/parallel parking. And probably eventually parking garages once Willy’s build is complete.😉 That might become challenging, but we will figure it out because I don’t foresee the Urban Jeeping adventures coming to an end for us.
6) What inspires you? Do you have any accounts, artists, or people that inspire you on this Jeep journey that you’d like to share about?
I’m inspired daily by the beautiful builds and content I’m inundated with on social media. The list of “wants” for Willy’s build grows pretty regularly ever since joining the online community. As an art major in college, Keith Haring and the pop art culture in general have inspired not only my art, but the personality of Willy as well. I teamed up with @lbdesignworks to help create subtle nods, or “Easter eggs,” to Keith’s artwork when deciding to brand her and give her an identity of her own. I couldn’t be more happy with how her build journey is unfolding so far, and the best part is, I’m only getting started!
