Legacy and Potential: The Jeep Story

January 11, 2011, By Craig J. Heimbuch 3 comments

They get in your blood. They change you. You drive a Wrangler for any length of time and you find it nearly impossible not to wave at the other people lucky enough to call themselves Jeep drivers. There's just something about them, something hard to define. As a brand, as a vehicle. As an experience.

I've seen a lot of cars at this year's North American International Auto Show. I've sat in Mercedes and Audis. I've gotten a tutorial on a new iPhone integration system in a Mini Cooper from a German engineer. I've run my fingers across an original Corvette and stared dumbfounded at the sheer amazingness of Elon Musk's Tesla electric vehicles. He's changed the way we pay online with PayPal and he just may change the way we drive. 

But not yet.

General Motors introduced a new Buick that should have Toyota and Honda checking their rear-view mirrors. And Ford's display of cross-overs, compacts and compact cross-overs takes up roughly a quarter of this giant space. But, still, there is Jeep. As always, for me, there is Jeep.

I got my first Jeep, a '97 Wrangler, in college. I began obsessing over them in junior high. And with the start of the ignition that very first time, I unwittingly became a part of something larger than my own indiscriminate and wandering lust - a global community of people who dream in four-wheel drive; a community of people who, with the raising of two fingers over the steering wheel, acknowledge more similarity and shared passion than any summit could create. I became a Jeep guy. 

And while I got rid of the Wrangler and moved to a Cherokee - and that Cherokee begat a Jetta, which begat my current car - I cemented a part of my DNA in those years. I added a twist to my double-helix that loved the ruggedness, the two-minute daydreams of winding down a dirt road through the woods. Because though I may have physically been at a stoplight in the suburbs, I was someplace else. 

And I am not alone. I spent some time yesterday hovering around the new Jeeps - the all-new Grand Cherokee and Compass, the Patriot, the Wrangler Unlimited and the Call of Duty Black Ops edition of the standard Wrangler. I hovered to take in the details - like the tiny image of a Wrangler molded into the Compass left tail light, the baseball glove leather of the Grand Cherokee's seats and the ammunition bag doors of the Black Ops Wrangler - but also to listen. While visitors talked about other brands' features, those taking in the Jeep line-up told their stories. One man told me he put 200,000 miles on his '92 Wrangler and didn't even mind when the floors rusted through and he had to use floor mats to keep the water from coming in. A woman told me that she met her husband the day she brought her Jeep home. They told me about their favorite road trips, the jobs they do with their Jeeps. They made comments about how the brand was back on track after years of plastic Grand Cherokees and Compass models you couldn't take off road.

Apparently, I am not the only one they told and not the only one listening.

Jim Morrison is the director of marketing for the Compass and Grand Cherokee. I spent some time with him today, walking around the cars and talking about legacy. 

"We take that very seriously," he said. " We always want to be moving forward, but we have to listen to what the consumer tells us. Jeep has very devoted clients and when we get something wrong, they let us know."

He used the introduction of the Compass as an example. Originally created as a design-forward urban transport - a sort of car with the aesthetic of an SUV - it fit into the emerging cross-over market all the car makers were going after. But the problem with that original model lied in the name on it's hood. It said Jeep, but to many it was a name the car didn't deserve. It wouldn't go off-road, the design strayed too far from the rest of the herd. Jeep people, the million on the company's Facebook page and millions more around the world, rejected it like a body rejects a virus. They complained that Jeep had gone soft. They lost a little bit of faith.

"That's really where we sort of fell down," said Morrison.

And after the last couple of years, in which parent company Chrysler - like all American carmakers - faced financial struggles and pressures from every corner of their P&Ls - Jeep leadership decided it was time to listen. So they went to work. They set about getting back up and yesterday unveiled the 2011 Compass, which hews closely to the Grand Cherokee in design and is Trail Rated, which means it can go toe-to-toe with any of it's siblings off road.

The Compass is the latest in a long attempt by Jeep to harness the power of people becoming "Jeep People." You can get it loaded for around $20,000 which takes it out of the lofty SUV category and puts it in competition with a different category - the Corolla, the Honda Civic, the VW Jetta. Follow the family tree down the roots and a natural progression becomes clear. Start with either the boxy, more Wrangler-like Patriot or the sleeker Compass and you can grow with the brand. The car you could afford at 19 becomes the next step up at 30, which leads to the luxury of the Grand Cherokee. Continue to grow and you find yourself in the Jeep Grand Cherokee Overland Summit edition, which gives you all the luxury of a German SUV - Mercedes, BMW, Porsche - at a fraction of the price. And there's one thing the Overland Summit has that the Germans, no matter how much they engineer and refine, will never have - the heart of a Jeep, the ability to inspire someone to become a Jeep person.

Few are the brands that can define your personality and not the other way around. I think about Nike people - fit, lithe, quiet and driven. Apple people - connected and hip. You can count on maybe one hand the number of brands that evoke such a clear image of defining characteristics - physical, emotional, aspirational. Jeep is one of them. 

Talk to the Jeep owners upset by original Compass and they don't sound dismissive, but disappointed. And disappointment can only be truly felt by someone who cares, deeply. Jeep is more than a brand, it's more than a seven bar grill or the ability to go off road. It's a defining characteristic to many. And while they may move on to other vehicles, Jeep people will tell you: Once you have driven a Jeep, every other kind of car is just transportation.