The calendar may say 2015, but one of the most popular vehicles on the road remains a trucklet born in World War II. As the Jeep Wrangler sets sales records in the United States and around the world, General Motors could finally field a true off-road truck under the GMC brand — if it can only make up its mind after more than a decade of eating Jeep dust.
According to The Wall Street Journal, executives from the GMC brand were asking dealers at a recent national conference whether adding a small off-roader to the lineup was a good idea. Last year, Jeep sold 234,579 Wranglers worldwide, with sales up 13 percent in the United States.
For car fans, this is deja vu all over again. Back when it was building Hummer into a sizable business at the turn of the century, GM laid plans for a Wrangler-killer that would have been called the Hummer H4. The car above was a concept version, dubbed the Hummer HX, unveiled at the 2008 Detroit auto show. Sometimes concept cars are little more than mockups; the HX had a full spec sheet, including a 302-hp V-6, removable roof panels and 24 inches of ground clearance. The H4 would have been built off a modified version of GM's mid-size truck chassis, but the economic collapse and GM's bankruptcy sank the H4, the entire Hummer brand and the executives who wanted to kick Jeep in the teeth.
Chevy Colorado ZR2 ConceptOnly now, as gas prices ease and GM has returned to full financial health, does the company have the resources to consider a niche truck like a Wranger fighter. GM showed off a hint of its off-road thinking with the Chevy Colorado ZR2 concept at the Los Angeles auto show last year, yet if it approved a full-bore new GMC product today, GM would need at least three years to build it.
Why such reluctance to give buyers what they want? In carbuilding, momentum means everything, and being popular only makes it harder for a newcomer. The U.S. sales charts would say every company should build a full-size pickup, but if you're not Ford or GM or Chrysler, doing so requires spending at least $1 billion for a vehicle that — no matter how smart you are — will take years to win acceptance, can't be sold elsewhere and will likely never make back the investment. It's not just that Jeep sells a lot of Wranglers; it's that those buyers want a Jeep again and again and again, despite what some magazine might say.
There's another hurdle on the government side: No vehicle has quite the fuel economy challenges that a Jeep Wrangler does. U.S. rules set fuel economy targets based on a vehicle's footprint (technically, its wheelbase multiplied by its track width.) Small footprints get higher targets, and big footprints get lower ones. Cars and trucks do get separate scales, but there's no adjustment for what's setting inside that footprint. All that hurts a vehicle like the Jeep Wrangler most; it's small by truck standards, but hefty due to its off-road chassis and bits like the solid rear axle.
Jeep executives have said that the next-generation Wrangler could use aluminum parts and small turbo engines to meet its targets, but that might not be enough. Fiat Chrysler chief Sergio Marchionne said earlier this month the company had yet to decide where to build the next-generation Wrangler due in 2017; switching to a unibody frame and aluminum body could mean moving the Wrangler line out of the Toledo plant, a prospect that has upset workers there even though Chrysler has vowed no layoffs.
In other words, the next Wrangler will look much more like other SUVs under the skin and less like the WWII throwback its fans demand today. (Building the folding windshield out of a unibody frame is going to be worthy of an SAE paper or two.) When the Wrangler changes that dramatically, it will be the first time in ages that GM or another competitor could steal some momentum — if they can only get in gear.
