Each Friday on the Jeep_® Blog, we explore the Jeep brand’s iconic heritage by highlighting a different historical vehicle. This week’s vehicle is the 1980–1986 Jeep CJ-5 Laredo.

We’re now fully into the 1980s in our Jeep heritage retrospective. This week, the CJ-5 Laredo model, produced from 1980–1986, is the focus.

If you were to sum up the Laredo model in one word, it would be “chrome.”

The first thing that sticks out is its distinctive (and gorgeous) chrome grille. The chrome bumper, wheels, hood emblem and trim add to its polished look. Its optional contoured bucket seats, carpeting, air conditioning and the available hard or soft top gave it versatility to shine out on the town as well as it did the trails.

The Laredo name is tied to the Jeep brand and lives on to this day as a trim option for the Grand Cherokee. And while a Laredo package was available for the original Wrangler (YJ), its origin lies in the original Jeep CJ-5 (and CJ-7) models of yesteryear.