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Jeep Cherokee sales rival Wrangler after two months

In our First Drive article on the 2014 Jeep Cherokee we said, "our informal and thoroughly unscientific opinion is they're going to sell tons of them. Why? Because it is very good." So far, it appears the public concurs. Of course, it's very early - the new compact utility has logged just one month of confirmed sales, but Larry Vellequette at Automotive News says dealers have told him that the second month of sales will be even better, a message that mirrors what we've heard from company execs.
In its first, severely truncated month on sale, the Cherokee sold 579 units. With all of November to play with, though, dealers moved 10,169 of them - compared to 11,753 Wranglers and 14,798 Grand Cherokees. That helped propel Jeep to a 30-percent year-on-year improvement for the month, Chrysler Group to a 16-percent improvement and the group's 44th consecutive month of sales growth, exceeding analyst expectations in posting its best November numbers since 2007.
If it can just keep replicating the its first month of sales, the finalist in North American Truck of the Year voting will smoke the trade done by the outgoing Liberty, which didn't break 7,900 units in a month in the last four years of its life (and normally didn't get close to even that). In March this year, Chrysler said it wants to build 250,000 Cherokees in its Toledo assembly plant for global sales. It's early yet, but with second-month sales quoted as being as "strong as death," the bookies might be resetting the odds.

Steve McQueen's U.S. Army Willys Jeep is up for auction

It's not a Bullitt Mustang, but this World War II Willys Jeep up for auction was still owned and driven by the famous Steve McQueen, and it could now be yours. Heading to the block with Silverstone Auctions, this 1945 Willys was bought directly from the U.S. Army by McQueen himself. The Willys was sold in 1984 as part of the Steve McQueen Estate Auction for a whopping $6,000, and then sold to its current owner some undisclosed amount of time after that. Currently, the Willys resides in the U.K. where it was completely restored to the state it would have been in during McQueen's ownership. The restoration process was completed by the Jeep experts at Jeeparts. It comes with a certificate of authenticity from the Steve McQueen Estate Sale to ensure its legitimacy. Silverstone Auctions is predicting a final hammer price of $105,00 - $131,000. That's pretty exorbitant for an old Willys, but there's certainly been a bit of excitement around the late actor here recently. Bonhams just auctioned off some old motorcycles owned by McQueen, and Ford has finally brought the Bullitt Mustang back to the market. If you're a fan with a little (or a lot of) extra change in your back pocket, this looks like a perfect way to have some off-road fun in a car with some seriously special history. The auction is taking place Nov 10-11 near Birmingham in the U.K. Related Video:

Why Mopar won't release a factory lift kit for the new Jeep Cherokee

The Jeep Cherokee Dakar concept showed off at the 2014 Easter Jeep Safari made a lot of online friends, even the Cherokee naysayers assenting that there's a monster Jeep underneath the Cherokee's skin if you're willing to go in and get it. But after reading Road & Track's write-up of what went into creating the Dakar, particularly its lift, you'll understand why you'll probably never see the components for it in the Jeep Performance Parts catalog.
The concept's press release mentions a "prototype Jeep Performance Parts lift kit, and additional suspension modifications." The short-story explanation is that the front struts on the standard Cherokee weren't engineered to accept any amount of lift, so the long story begins with the phrase, "an entirely new suspension." Head over to RT to read the details, and don't be afraid to ogle the Cherokee Dakar gallery and another awesome Jeep fancy that won't likely crawl over the hurdles imposed by production reality.