When Jeep announced that it would revive the Wagoneer nameplate for a big sport-utility vehicle, Patrick Foster predicted that it could be as historic and game changing as the original (Bond, 2020).
Those words carried weight because Foster is arguably the most prominent Jeep historian. Now that the Wagoneer has been on the market for a while, let’s check in to see if the SUV has lived up to his billing.
If we measure the Wagoneer’s impact by sales, it has been modestly but not spectacularly successful. Automotive News reported that the Wagoneer (in base and “Grand” versions) were the only Jeep nameplates to see higher sales in the first six months of 2024 (Bond, 2024). Even so, the new Jeeps were still well behind the segment leaders.
Wagoneer sales have grown but still in middle of pack
The base Wagoneer tallied almost 30,000 in sales in the first half of 2024. That included a “short” version with a 123-inch wheelbase and 215-inch length, as well as an “L” version with a seven-inch-longer wheelbase and a 12-inch-longer length.
The Jeep’s sales were below that of the GMC Yukon/Yukon XL (roughly 40,000), the Ford Expedition (43,000 units) and the Chevrolet Tahoe/Suburban (70,000 units) but above the Toyota Sequoia (13,000) and Nissan Armada (9,000).
Meanwhile, the higher-priced Grand Wagoneer racked up almost 8,000 sales in the first half of 2024. That was ahead of the Lincoln Navigator (under 7,000 units) but behind the Cadillac Escalade (roughly 19,000 units).
So all in all the Wagoneer is hardly a failure — particularly in light of declining sales for the rest of the Jeep lineup, which dropped by 16 percent in the first half of 2024 despite 2.2 percent growth in the total U.S. automotive market (Bond, 2024). But historic and game changing?
Here’s what Consumer Reports (2024) had to say about a 2023 model: “The all-new Wagoneer, which is based upon the body-on-frame construction of the Ram 1500 pickup truck, is a super-comfortable, three-row cruise ship with a brawny powertrain and a well-finished cabin. But this throwback to a nearly bygone era of enormous, fuel-sucking vehicles is about $10,000 more than its main rivals, and that’s before you factor in the absurdly high $2,000 destination charge.”
Should historians be thinly disguised marketeers?
As we previously discussed, the most striking quality of the Wagoneer is its utter genericness. Of course, that’s hardly unusual for an American car. So is slapping on a “legendary” nameplate and over-hyping the new car’s charms. What gives me pause is when a historian appears to become an extension of an automaker’s marketing department.
Some cars grow on me over time, but when I recently came across a pair of Wagoneers my main reaction continued to be that they reflected same old, same old at a time when upstart automakers such as Tesla have been pushing the envelope on SUV packaging.
Also see ‘The downside of auto historians writing about their friends’
For example, the Model X comes far closer to being a historic and game-changing design than the new Wagoneer — and that’s not just because it is an electric vehicle. The Tesla’s unusually aerodynamic shape represents a radical break from the ultra-boxiness typical of larger SUVs.
The new Jeep Wagoneer is just another bloated SUV along life’s highway. The marketplace has thus far responded accordingly. The only question that remains is whether Foster will refer to the revived Wagoneer as historic and game changing in his next Jeep book.
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RE:SOURCES
- Bond, Vince Jr.; 2024. “Grand Wagoneer goes boldly into the future.” Automotive News. Posted Sept. 7.
- ——; 2024. “Jeep’s big Wagoneers seeing growth as Grand Cherokee, Wrangler struggle.” Automotive News. Posted July 22.
- Consumer Reports; 2024. “2023 Jeep Wagoneer.” Accessed Sept. 17.
Accurate enough. However I think it is more there as Range Rover or Escalade Mercedes large SUV. I saw a Wagoneer and I couldn’t find “Jeep” anywhere on the vehicle. My guess is Stellantis is preparing the ground for an exclusive luxury SUV for the Eurasian market.
I didn’t get into Jeep’s pricing strategy, which included going upmarket and competing with luxury makes by treating the Wqgoneer as a subbrand (thus, the lack of “Jeep” nomenclature on the car’s exterior).
However, in a previous piece I did argue that then-corporate overlord FCA was smart to not offer a badge-engineered luxury model like the Cadillac Escalade and Lincoln Navigator, which arguably undercut their brand’s integrity by not being adequately differentiated from their lower-priced Chevrolet and Ford siblings.
Some critics have argued that Jeep’s recent sales decline is partly a result of moving too aggressively upmarket. For example, Peter DeLorenzo recently wrote that “Jeep operatives got stars in their eyes and got hit with the giant Greed Stick, while figuring that the sales good times would never end, so they kept relentlessly jacking up Jeep prices over the last three years. And guess what? They ignored one of the time-honored axioms in this business, which goes something like this: The good times always come to an end.”
All of the Jeep & Wagoneer offerings are way overpriced for their level of cachet.
The market for large and/or expensive SUVs is beginning to run into strong headwinds. There’s now lots of competition that did not exist when the original Wagoneer was discontinued. In fact none of the high end SUVs are runaway market successes. They have for most of their existence been niche vehicles. As the economy dictates there will likely be a move toward lower priced vehicles that will further decrease sales. However, at the middle and lower end of the market the revived Bronco is selling well as are the lower end SUVs from Honda and Toyota and even Tesla. And let’s face it, a Wagoneer without those fake wood panels just isn’t the same thing.
The Wagoneer & Grand Wagoneer aren’t in the same league as a Tesla Model X in that the X is not a tow vehicle. I miss the Jeep name, though I understand why Stellantis left it out. (I am also not convinced that Ram should be a brand as well.)
They are a little bit like a Genesis… when you park next to one, it looks nice enough. For the money, you could buy more prestige (you are in the Escalade-Range Rover adjacent pricing), more grunt (a fancy four door pick up), or something that’s more of a three row people mover than a body on frame SUV. Do they appeal to women or to people trading up from a Grand Cherokee? The old fake paneling in the old Grand Wagoneer is memorable; I think I am glad the Wagoneer doesn’t have overtly retro styling, but it’s a little bit too much like a four wheel appliance. Maybe that’s because I mainly see them in black or white.
My point wasn’t that the Model X was a direct competitor but that it represents truly fresh thinking. In contrast, the Wagoneer is essentially copying the same old approach that GM and Ford have been using for years in big SUVs.
I think that words should matter. If a historian says that a new car could be historic and game changing, then it should actually have major features that back up that contention.
In the Wagoneer’s case, an unusually aerodynamic design, an aluminum body, standard hybrid power and a smaller footprint would have been a good start. Instead we got a disguised Ram truck.