Arguably the primary trendy SUV, the Jeep Cherokee has been canceled after 49 years. We’re getting the discover a little bit late. A Jeep spokesperson confirms to Carscoops the Belvidere, Illinois, plant that constructed the Cherokee “was idled on the finish of February, and manufacturing of the 2023 Cherokee ended when the plant was idled.”
A Traditionally Vital Nameplate
Automotive lovers and automotive historians wish to argue, so that you’ll by no means get them to agree on the exact second the fashionable SUV was born. However Jeep makes a fairly convincing argument for the early Cherokee automobiles beginning the craze. The 1974 first-generation Cherokee used the phrase “sports activities utility car” in a advertising brochure — probably its first use by an automaker.
However the first model was a basic, body-on-frame mannequin like a pickup truck. Its 1984 successor was the watershed second for Jeep. As the primary mainstream SUV constructed with light-weight unibody building, it set the design ethos Jeep SUVs nonetheless use in the present day.
By 1992, Jeep would spin off the bigger Grand Cherokee. For many years, that turned the model’s flagship — an even bigger vendor and better-known. But it surely owes its existence to the little Cherokee.
The Grand Cherokee, we ought to be clear, just isn’t going wherever. Jeep has solely introduced the cancelation of the compact Cherokee.
Pale in Current Years
Extra just lately, the Cherokee has light in significance. The long-lasting Wrangler, sales-leading Grand Cherokee, Gladiator pickup, and even the subcompact Compass outsell it many months.
At the moment’s Cherokee is lauded for being among the many greatest off-road architectures of any present compact SUV, however few Individuals take their compact SUVs far off-road. The everyday-livable crossover structure the Cherokee as soon as pioneered has turned the compact SUV into an amazing commuter platform and a grocery-run grasp with all-weather functionality. The Cherokee, as soon as a pioneer, now lives in a crowded house with many lookalikes.
Jeep has by no means been an organization that got down to construct an indistinguishable car. So the corporate will return to the drafting board with plans to return to the compact SUV house with one thing extra identifiable.
“We’ve plans for that essential car in that essential section, which we’ll reveal in due time,” a spokesman says.
Many Nonetheless on Supplier Tons
Within the meantime, sellers nonetheless have some Cherokee automobiles on tons.
On the finish of February, our information exhibits, sellers had 101 days’ price of Cherokee fashions in stock. An outdated business rule of thumb tells them to intention for 60 days’ price. New automotive costs are on the best way down, and the typical Cherokee offered for barely under the sticker worth final month — earlier than anybody knew the mannequin’s run would finish quickly.
Sellers are sometimes keen to simply accept much less for canceled fashions as a result of producers cease promoting them, and sellers need to make room within the showroom for one thing customers have seen on TV just lately.
In the event you’re within the compact SUV market, this may be a good time to make a barely low supply on an in-stock Cherokee to get a fairly whole lot at a time when these are simply starting to return again.
