What It's like to Drive a Jeep Renegade Pickup with a Diesel Engine

Still, Jeep likes to play with its imagination every year and see what crazy ideas can actually be turned into working concepts. The Comanche is one of them, a tiny truck with Trailhawk looks that made its debut earlier this month at the Easter Jeep Safari. It's painted in a funky color called "Beige Against the Machine" and looks like it descended from WWII army vehicles.

We bet the idea of a shrunken truck is floating around the corporate offices of the Fiat-Chrysler Alliance. Because even RAM is considering the idea, as Mike Manley said the following in a recent interview: "I think there’s opportunity there in the U.S. if you look at what’s happened in the mid-size segment here - significant growth last year. I think that space is big enough, certainly, to have two offerings there."

Manley also added that there was potential for RAM to use a Fiat pickup platform. That's important because the Toro truck recently launched in Brazil shares its underpinnings with the Jeep Renegade and the same 1.8-liter engine with flex fuel capabilities is available on both.

As a one-off, the Comanche is special in many ways. It's equipped with a diesel engine, like the Renegade models that are sold in Europe. It also features a bed that appears production-ready, which is strange. The guys at TFL Truck make a great point in their short review of the concept: people won't buy a two-door pickup, which is why the regular Tacoma was discontinued. But maybe it will work as a fashion statement, like weathered jeans and many fake beards, only with an army twist.