Production Dates Revealed for Newest, Biggest Jeeps

Steph Willems
by Steph Willems

If you spend your days decrying the bloat of American automobiles, you won’t like what 2021 has in store for you. It’ll be like 2020… only worse!

Scary stuff. For consumers enamored both with the Jeep brand and large, cargo-happy vehicles, however, next year will bring the dawning of a new age of glorious excess. Thanks to Fiat Chrysler’s second-quarter earnings report, we can now pin down post-lockdown production timelines for three Jeep vehicles boasting three rows of seating.

The production timelines, noted by Motor1, span the year. The first of the new Jeep models out the door is a three-row SUV due to start assembly in the first quarter of 2021. That model will shared a platform and powertrains with the next-generation Grand Cherokee, with production taking place at the converted Mack Avenue plant in Detroit.

Following on the heels of that model, which should appear with its own name (as opposed to Grand Cherokee XL or something similar), is the Jeep Wagoneer and Grand Wagoneer. Hulking, truck-based SUVs with varying levels of lux, the two biggest Jeeps will begin assembly in the second quarter of the year. Built at Warren truck, the two Wagoneers share the Ram 1500’s underpinnings.

Hybrid versions of all three vehicles are expected, and with good reason. Tesla has only so many green credits to sell. Don’t fret, though — there’ll be V8 engines to be had, for sure, and the price ceiling on on the Grand Wagoneer will likely satisfy those who can’t stomach paying less than six figures for a vehicle.

Also on the docket is the Grand Cherokee, long overdue for a revamp. Rolling out of the Mack Avenue and Jefferson North plants, the model slated for a Q3 production start will include a plug-in hybrid variant.

Overall, it doesn’t look like the pandemic-borne lockdown impacted the production timeline of the three-row models in any significant way, though the Grand Cherokee was initially expected to roll out in the first half of the year.

[Image: Fiat Chrysler Automobiles]

Steph Willems
Steph Willems

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  • Oberkanone Oberkanone on Aug 08, 2020

    Nothing for Belvidere.

    • Lorenzo Lorenzo on Aug 09, 2020

      Belvidere in the last ten years was used to build the new Dart, Compass, Patriot, and regular Cherokee. The Dart and Patriot have been discontinued, and the Compass sold in NA is now made in Toluca, Mexico, where the Fiat 500 was built. Only the regular Cherokee is left in Belvidere's 5 million square foot assembly plant on 280 acres. I suspect the assembly plant will be closed rather than get any new models. The separate stamping plant is modern and automated, but the panels can be shipped to other assembly plants. I suspect the cost of labor in Illinois is part of the problem.

  • Bobby Bobby on Aug 09, 2020

    If the new Wagoneer is going to be a full-sized SUV primed against the Chevy Tahoe and Ford Expedition, they really ought to make a blinged-out, ultra lux version of it and call it "Chrysler Imperial." It could be a bargain basement alternative (relatively speaking) to the Escalade and Navigator; similar flash and sizzle for tens of thousands less. Plus the poor Chrysler brand is currently starved for product- just one minivan (with 2 names) and the aging 300 (a model which apparently won't see another generation).

    • Lie2me Lie2me on Aug 09, 2020

      I always thought Cadillac should have called the Escalade, "Truck DeVille" and the Lincoln Navigator, "Lincoln Town Truck"

  • Tassos Under incompetent, affirmative action hire Mary Barra, GM has been shooting itself in the foot on a daily basis.Whether the Malibu cancellation has been one of these shootings is NOT obvious at all.GM should be run as a PROFITABLE BUSINESS and NOT as an outfit that satisfies everybody and his mother in law's pet preferences.IF the Malibu was UNPROFITABLE, it SHOULD be canceled.More generally, if its SEGMENT is Unprofitable, and HALF the makers cancel their midsize sedans, not only will it lead to the SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST ones, but the survivors will obviously be more profitable if the LOSERS were kept being produced and the SMALL PIE of midsize sedans would yield slim pickings for every participant.SO NO, I APPROVE of the demise of the unprofitable Malibu, and hope Nissan does the same to the Altima, Hyundai with the SOnata, Mazda with the Mazda 6, and as many others as it takes to make the REMAINING players, like the Excellent, sporty Accord and the Bulletproof Reliable, cheap to maintain CAMRY, more profitable and affordable.
  • GregLocock Car companies can only really sell cars that people who are new car buyers will pay a profitable price for. As it turns out fewer and fewer new car buyers want sedans. Large sedans can be nice to drive, certainly, but the number of new car buyers (the only ones that matter in this discussion) are prepared to sacrifice steering and handling for more obvious things like passenger and cargo space, or even some attempt at off roading. We know US new car buyers don't really care about handling because they fell for FWD in large cars.
  • Slavuta Why is everybody sweating? Like sedans? - go buy one. Better - 2. Let CRV/RAV rust on the dealer lot. I have 3 sedans on the driveway. My neighbor - 2. Neighbors on each of our other side - 8 SUVs.
  • Theflyersfan With sedans, especially, I wonder how many of those sales are to rental fleets. With the exception of the Civic and Accord, there are still rows of sedans mixed in with the RAV4s at every airport rental lot. I doubt the breakdown in sales is publicly published, so who knows... GM isn't out of the sedan business - Cadillac exists and I can't believe I'm typing this but they are actually decent - and I think they are making a huge mistake, especially if there's an extended oil price hike (cough...Iran...cough) and people want smaller and hybrids. But if one is only tied to the quarterly shareholder reports and not trends and the big picture, bad decisions like this get made.
  • Wjtinfwb Not proud of what Stellantis is rolling out?
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