Photo: Jeep
It’s been quite a few years now since hearsay about an all-new Grand Wagoneer set the rumor mill ablaze. Jeep head honcho Mike Manley and FCA's Sergio Marchionne said, more recently, that the GW will indeed come back, but things aren’t going as planned.
Citing two supplier sources close to Jeep and the GW project, the peeps over at Automotive News imply that the project has been frozen. The publication’s Fiat Chrysler reporter sees this matter in two ways: it’s either money or the retooling efforts for the Sterling Heights, Michigan and Toledo, Ohio plants.
I agree the guy has a point, but what if Fiat Chrysler is both low on cash and too slow in adapting production from unibody to body-on-frame vehicles? As a brief refresher, Sterling Heights is a shadow of its former self now that the Chrysler 200 is no longer in production. Here, FCA will make the 2018 Ram 1500 full-size pickup truck. Meanwhile, keeping the Jeep Wrangler in Toledo for the JL generation will cost FCA $700 million in terms of retooling.
As Automotive News points out, FCA is “six years into a recovery,” even though it “remains the only major automaker in the world with more debt than cash.” The Giorgio platform that underpins the Alfa Romeo Giulia and Stelvio is said to have cost FCA $1 billion. As common sense dictates, FCA needs to build more models on this platform to get its investment money back, plus profit. In this regard, jumper-wearing Sergio Marchionne said that the Giorgio framework “may spill in some forms as far as a Jeep.”
It’s also worth noting that the business case for the 2019 Jeep Grand Wagoneer doesn’t go together with FCA’s current U.S. operations. At the present moment, the company is hard at work on the JL Wrangler, the new Wrangler's pickup truck version, the 2018 Ram 1500, and the Ram heavy-duty lineup. Those are a lot of nameplates listed there and, without a single shadow of a doubt, FCA U.S. LLC’s manpower and coffer are at their limits.
Initially expected to go on sale late in 2018 for the 2019 model year, I sure hope the all-new Jeep Grand Wagoneer and the Wagoneer will somehow arrive on the market in 2019 for model year 2020. That’s if FCA U.S. LLC doesn’t go belly up until then or if it doesn’t get bought by an automaker with a much healthier cash flow than America's 3rd biggest vehicle manufacturer.
I agree the guy has a point, but what if Fiat Chrysler is both low on cash and too slow in adapting production from unibody to body-on-frame vehicles? As a brief refresher, Sterling Heights is a shadow of its former self now that the Chrysler 200 is no longer in production. Here, FCA will make the 2018 Ram 1500 full-size pickup truck. Meanwhile, keeping the Jeep Wrangler in Toledo for the JL generation will cost FCA $700 million in terms of retooling.
As Automotive News points out, FCA is “six years into a recovery,” even though it “remains the only major automaker in the world with more debt than cash.” The Giorgio platform that underpins the Alfa Romeo Giulia and Stelvio is said to have cost FCA $1 billion. As common sense dictates, FCA needs to build more models on this platform to get its investment money back, plus profit. In this regard, jumper-wearing Sergio Marchionne said that the Giorgio framework “may spill in some forms as far as a Jeep.”
It’s also worth noting that the business case for the 2019 Jeep Grand Wagoneer doesn’t go together with FCA’s current U.S. operations. At the present moment, the company is hard at work on the JL Wrangler, the new Wrangler's pickup truck version, the 2018 Ram 1500, and the Ram heavy-duty lineup. Those are a lot of nameplates listed there and, without a single shadow of a doubt, FCA U.S. LLC’s manpower and coffer are at their limits.
Initially expected to go on sale late in 2018 for the 2019 model year, I sure hope the all-new Jeep Grand Wagoneer and the Wagoneer will somehow arrive on the market in 2019 for model year 2020. That’s if FCA U.S. LLC doesn’t go belly up until then or if it doesn’t get bought by an automaker with a much healthier cash flow than America's 3rd biggest vehicle manufacturer.
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