The name Wagoneer Came recently came back to lifealmost three decades after he spent about ten minutes on a trim level designation for a first year wood-based Grand Cherokeebut the vehicle we should think of when we see the word Wagoneer is the original SJ versionwhich was designed by the legendary Brooks Stevens and built from model years 1963 through 1991. We saw a 1966 SJ Wagoneer in this series last year, and now here is a 1975 SJ in the exact same junkyard in the Denver area.
The original Wagoneer was built by Kaiser Jeep until 1970, when American Motors Corporation purchased the company and continued Wagoneer production. When the revolutionary XJ Cherokee The Wagoneer name appeared for the 1984 model year was used for the top version of that truckwhile the original SJ Wagoneer the Big WagoneerWhen Chrysler bought AMC in 1987 (largely because Lee Iacocca saw the value in the Jeep brand), Grand Wagoneers continued to roll off the assembly line for four more years (despite being an outdated design from the early ’60s), because they just kept selling.
The original Jeep Cherokee was simply a two-door SJ Wagoneer, which first hit the road as a 1974 model. Just to confuse everyone, someone put an SJ Cherokee fender (or maybe just the fender emblems) on this truck.
The build tag tells us that this truck was built at Toledo meeting in Ohio, and that the original engine was an AMC 360-cubic-inch (5.8-liter) V8. To make the parts counter workers’ lives hell for decades after Chrysler bought AMC, this engine has nothing whatsoever to do with Chrysler’s 360-cubic-inch V8.
It still has an AMC V8 with a two-barrel carburetor in it, so it could easily be the factory original. If so, it was rated at 175 horsepower and 285 pound-feet.
If you find modern automotive HVAC controls too complicated, you’ll love the controls in this truck.
The radio, which looked like a dealer-installed unit, picked up both AM and FM signals. And FM radio!
This truck would be considered hilariously primitive by 2024 SUV standards (or even early 1990s standards), and its fuel economy was abysmal for the gas pipeline erabut it was sturdy and simple.
It’s battered, faded and a little rusty, but it still looks a little too good to have ended up here.
This is what happens when time-traveling soldiers from the Korean War encounter the 1976 Jeep line in the California desert.