FCA Cop Out: Looming Jeep Wagoneer, Grand Wagoneer Are Just Fancy Grand Cherokees

If you were expecting Jeep’s upcoming Wagoneer and Grand Wagoneer to be range-topping standalone models, think again.

According to Automotive News, the new additions to the lineup will simply be upscale versions of the next-generation Grand Cherokee. Consider your retro-tinged dreams squashed.

Speaking at Fiat Chrysler Automobiles’ Chelsea Proving Grounds, Jeep brand chief Mike Manley said that the two names were more trim designations than models:

“The Wagoneer name represents, historically, the pinnacle of premium for the Jeep world,” he said. “But in the same way as you may have an Overland and a Summit, you have different trim levels. So you could imagine the use of Wagoneer to denote a really premium vehicle, and Grand Wagoneer takes it to the very next level. If you were to use that as your naming strategy, that’s exactly how I would use the trims.

Forget the blunt-nosed full-sizer that impressed buyers before the term “SUV” was even coined — the upcoming Wagoneer could just as easily have been called the Grand Cherokee Ultra-Lux. (LX Plus?)

Jeep, also known as FCA’s money tree, is currently busy shuffling production to make way for the Wagoneer, Grand Wagoneer and Wrangler pickup. The first two models trims should arrive when the next-generation Grand Cherokee bows in late 2018 or 2019.

This isn’t the first time Jeep tainted the name of the beloved Wagoneer. In 1993, the brand took the name of the recently killed model (1963–1991, R.I.P.) and grafted it onto a second-model-year Grand Cherokee outfitted with fake wood grain body cladding, calling it — yup — the Grand Wagoneer.

That model, which wasn’t really a model, much like the future Wagoneers won’t really be a model, lasted one year.