Who knew? Chip acknowledges the Cherokee as having a near perfect design.

 

Did someone say elegant?

 

looks even better than the new bronco

 

It's nice to see the xj get a little love. Anyone else think Foose is starting look a little like Trump with the hair?

It's to bad jeep already ruined the Cherokee name with the new one. It would be cool to see a real retro redo to compete with the new bronco.

 

no joke, the new cherokee minivan is ugly as sin.

 

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I was thinking that the whole time 😂🤣😂

 

I'm all for a redo of the XJ - An XJ2 if you will - but my biggest fear is they'd screw it up.

The design Chip suggests is pretty good. It needs a little bit more length back-to-front and he did the 2-door, I'd love to see the re-imagined 4 door.

I can't agree that the success of the XJ was merely "how it looks". Simplicity is a factor, but the real success of the XJ was that it was all of, simple, functional, capable and reliable. As I often note, my Dad to this day considers his 94 the best vehicle he ever owned in terms of reliability... 400k original everything (mechanically) and all of it functioned perfectly when he retired due to body rust. He had zero major problems and did little more than routine maintenance over 15 years of DD.

IF the XJ were revived, IMO it would need to be what it was originally, a uni-body "Wrangler" with plenty of cargo space. That would mean solid front and rear axles, a manual transmission option, etc. I'd be OK with the quadra-coil rear suspension replacing the leaf spring design so long as it wasn't sacrificing load capacity. Anything less than that and I'm a solid NO. Lack of a manual transmission option on it's own is a deal-breaker for me. Considering that the new Wranglers are available with 4 doors (something that wasn't true when I was shopping for a new XJ in 2000), the actual Wrangler is a heck of a lot closer to the original XJ than it was in the past, so unless there's a substantial weight savings and cargo capacity gain by a new XJ style vehicle, it seems a pretty hard sell.

 

What Chip was saying is, Instead of paying big $ for a new Bronco, go get an XJ Cherokee and build it up a little bit for a fraction of the cost. Because the old Cherokee's are just hard to beat. Bombproof drivetrain and they look sweet.

 

Chip Foose is great.

As to the XJ2 Jeep did this with the KJ and KK.

We have owned a 2012 KK since new. If you take a good look you can see the clear roots of the XJ heritage but in somewhat of a failed modernization. Our KK has been great for what it is. Solid rear axle four link/pan hard. IFS front. V-6 with simple 4 speed OD auto. Jeep went too far into the car category and lost what the XJ really was. An absolutely great off-road vehicle.

Maybe the new Bronco will push Jeep in the direction of a real off-road XJ like vehicle. Won't be holding my breath though.

 

Now bring back the 4.0l

 

There were rumors of FCA replacing the Pentastar V6 with a Turbo 3.0L Dual OHC Inline 6 called the Tornado. I haven't heard anything about it recently but I don't think many would thrilled about another OHC motor in a Jeep. What we need to do is design a crossflow aluminum head for the 4L blocks along with an Intake Manifold and Turbo Kit.

 

I think any true offroad inspired SUV that Jeep could release now would still get over shadowed by the 4 door Wrangler or at least compete too much with the same market sales so I doubt they will ever go that direction.
The Commander always seemed like it would of been better suited for the Cherokee name then the new Cherokee ever was.

 

It's interesting to see Foose sketch with a pen. If I even tried that with a pencil eraser shavings would cover half of the page. it was neat to watch.

 

YES!!!! MAKE JEEPS GREAT AGAIN!!!!

Not going to happen, but we can dream can't we.

 

No, Jeep definitely went towards a "Car" direction, they did not keep the things that made the XJ so great that 20 years later you still see a whole lot of them driving around.
The first mistake was the IFS. IFS is great for comfort, less great for off-road. If you want both IFS and off-road, you need to go the HMMWV route and start with 16" of ground clearance. The Liberty line was definitely MEANT to replace the XJ, and for a lot of people, is probably what they wanted. You can slap a name on anything and call it that, but it doesn't make it so. Was is evolutionary, yes. Was it the evolution -I- wanted, not at all.
Then you look at the Grand Compass, er, sorry, "Cherokee" KL - and AGAIN, Jeep missed it. The XJ is NOT a scaled down Grand Cherokee, it's a true "utility" vehicle with off-road capability and reliability. What from the KL in any way suggests the heritage of the name "Cherokee"? Nothing. It's literally just a mid grade trim level smack between the Compass and the Grand Cherokee. So it's fair to say we have a Compass, a Grand Compass and a Grand Grand Compass.

I mean, this is just my own extremely selfish opinion. I'd love a new XJ vehicle as I've described, but does the "market" want it. I doubt it.

My answer is to eventually get myself a 4dr JL with a hard top and new Aisin 6-speed. That's about as close as we can get to the XJ I sought to buy new in 2020. The old TJ at least had the I6, the new one at least has an Aisin stick shift and the cargo space.