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Jeep Grand Wagoneer could top out at $130,000

Jeep's image presents a blue-collar, American brand that builds SUVs for Average Joe drivers, nevermind the thousands of $40,000 Wrangler Unlimited that sell every year. But a revived Grand Wagoneer could push Jeep prices into a whole new realm. Eventually. Speaking to AutoExpress, Jeep boss Mike Manley confirmed "the Grand Wagoneer concept is moving forward," and that its price could reach levels previously unheard of from the brand. "I don't think there's a maximum price ceiling per se for Jeep. If you look at the upper end of the segment in the US, for me, the Grand Wagoneer done well can compete all the way through this segment," Manley told AE. "I'll use US dollars, but pushing the car up to $130,000 to $140,000 may be possible, but we need to establish Grand Wagoneer in its own right first. That's why I wouldn't say there's price ceiling." That's about twice as much as Jeep's current most-expensive model, the $66,690 Grand Cherokee SRT. Hell, it's more than a Dodge Viper ACR, and is roughly on par with a base Maserati GranTurismo. But while getting wrapped up in the idea of a six-figure Jeep is easy, Manley's argument that his brand needs to establish the new model first is more important. It absolutely does not sound like Jeep will introduce the reborn Grand Wagoneer with a trim near $130,000. Instead, we bet the new flagship model will kick off between $50,000 and $60,000, right near the top of where the brand currently plays. That lets Jeep undercut entry level versions of the BMW X5, Mercedes-Benz GLS, and GMC Yukon Denali without giving brand loyalists sticker shock. After establishing the Grand Wagoneer, to use Manley's parlance, Jeep can afford to push higher and challenge the base level Range Rover, which starts around $85,000. Only after that can we expect Manley's hypothesizing to come true. So yeah, while a $130,000 Jeep sounds like a possibility, we wouldn't expect it for at least a few model years after the Grand Wagoneer's big debut. Related Video:

Jeep Wrangler gets the wide-track treatment

When we read the tip about a Gulf-state diplomat in Rabat, Morocco who had supposedly "merged two Jeep Wranglers," we figured the two off-roaders were somehow linked front-to-back. Oh no. As you can see in the image above, taken from video of that vehicle actually traveling down the road and needing more than one lane to do it, the two Jeeps were put together side-by-side.
The seriously widebody truck is said to have six wheels, one at each corner and two in the middle. That's about all anyone seems to know about it at the moment, and that's probably enough - in these situations you know better than to ask why, just watch the video below.

The Apple of the auto industry isn't Tesla, it's Jeep

Whenever Apple is going to have a new product for sale in its stores, the fanboys line up in such great numbers that it's surprising Ticketmaster hasn't figured out a way to capitalize on the multitude of anxious buyers with credit cards ready to go. When Elon Musk talks about a new car being added to the lineup, there is an analogous group of people, and Musk has cleverly set up a model in which people place deposits for their place in line. The number of deposits (two per customer only, it should be noted) for the Model 3 is some 400,000. Because Tesla is a Silicon Valley company that has a highly desirable, highly designed suite of products for which there is demand the likes of which is completely uncharacteristic for the category, it is often compared to Apple. After all, has anyone gotten into line to buy a Windows phone? Do you even remember the Zune? So it must be that Tesla is like Apple. But there is one nontrivial problem with this comparison: Apple sells its products in mass quantity. Tesla, even though it just had its best quarter ever, delivering a record 25,418 vehicles - up 69 percent over the first quarter of 2016 - is still, when compared to the car industry in general, selling a specialized product. No, the automotive brand most like Apple is Jeep. Just as with Apple's quickly identified design language - either for the physical phones and computers or the interfaces for same - there is no mistaking a Jeep. Like Apple's legion of fans, there are people for whom a Jeep is not merely a form of transportation, but a statement about one's way of life. Like the companies that wish they could have designs that are Apple-like and do their utmost to have a similar objects or appearances (sometimes landing them in court, a la Samsung), is there a single automotive company that wouldn't like to have some of Jeep's magic? While there aren't people who are lined up outside of dealerships when a new Jeep goes on sale, there is probably more interest in the forthcoming Wrangler than in the accumulation of interest in a half-dozen other vehicles from other companies. And like Apple, Jeep is a comparative volume play. Last year FCA US LLC delivered 926,376 Jeeps. Walter P. Chrysler and the Dodge Brothers must be spinning at high velocity in their graves, because the U.S. total for Chrysler brand was 231,972, and Dodge was 506,858. The sum of the two - 738,830 - is well shy of Jeep's sales. On a global basis, Jeep sold some 1.4 million units in 2016.