Cute-utility vehicles (I’m sorry, I mean “crossovers”) are a plague on the roadways of America. It is a vehicle composed completely of compromise: I want utility, but I want something small. I want the image of power, but I want the frugality of a four-cylinder. I want a vehicle I can do some off-roady things in, so long as the path is nothing worse than your typical gravel road. Give me a break. Anything that claims to be a purposeful utility vehicle that makes a 1990s Ford Explorer look butch isn’t deserving of being called anything other than cute. Jeep Renegade, I’m looking squarely at you.
You want to see what an off-road, utility vehicle should be? Here it is: a 1977 Jeep Cherokee Chief Sport. Even if it was fully restored, the FSJ Cherokee is a beast. If you were to park this gray monster next to a new Renegade, it’d look like a kitten snuck into the den of an old lion: the kitten might be youthful and nimble, but the second that old lion starts to move around, my money is on the lion, every solid time. This is an Arizona truck, which means that the rust will be near-minimum. Note, we didn’t say “rust free”…we know better with FSJs, but any you find in this Cherokee will be easily dealt with, if it exists. An AMC 360 and Chrysler-sourced automatic run things, and the Quadra-Trac system has been converted to be part-time capable with locking hubs. And just in case you think you might need some spares, a parts vehicle is included.
This is how a utility vehicle should be…not some cartoon cube that likes to stick it’s butt up in the air.
eBay link: 1977 Jeep Cherokee Chief Sport
THIS is an off road vehicle for the southwest. The cutsie but unfunctional Feep cube you refer to, is an off road vehicle suitable for San Francisco or NYC.
Utility vehicles – mobile handbags used by Moms to negotiate tiny speed bumps on the school run.
This thing could be driven through the school gates, across the yard and straight through the wall of the school to deposit the adoring child straight at his desk. That’s after squishing every SUV on the way….