Jeep Grand Wagoneer in doubt Down Under

With seven-seat SUVs selling at record levels in Australia, you’d think the business case for an all-new model from Jeep, which currently only offers five-seat models, would write itself.

But Jeep Australia has cautioned that the specialist off-road brand’s upcoming Wagoneer and Grand Wagoneer large SUVs are still a very long way from being confirmed for our market – assuming they are made in right-hand drive at all.

“[Although] Wagoneer and Grand Wagoneer have been announced globally, we don’t have any clarity on right-hand drive markets at this stage,” said Jeep Australia’s new brand chief Guillaume Drelon at the launch of the updated Grand Cherokee this week.

The news comes just days after the launch of yet another seven-seat SUV, Skoda’s all-new Kodiaq and only a month after Jeep used the Shanghai motor show to reveal the imposing Yuntu seven-seat SUV concept (pictured), which could provide pointers to the all-new Wagoneer.

As we’ve also reported, Jeep has now decided to build the Wagoneer and Grand Wagoneer, which were originally conceived as high-end luxury SUVs to rival Range Rover, on the same production line as the Dodge RAM pickup.

That means they would ride on a cruder body-on-frame chassis – not the car-style monocoque design initially proposed – and compete more directly with utility-based models like the Ford Everest, Toyota Fortuner and Holden Trailblazer.

“Where we have a lot of opportunity with these models [the Wagoneer and Grand Wagoneer] is the seven-seat SUV market – and although nothing has been confirmed in terms of the technical specification of the car – that is where we’re looking to see what can be done,” Drelon clarified.

Locally, the sub-$70,000 seven-seat SUV market comprises 15 different models, and will be bolstered further by the arrival of Holden’s Acadia early next year.

Leaked images of the front and rear lighting signatures of the Grand Wagoneer, which will revive a nameplate last seen in Australia in the AMC days of the mid-1980s, show a well-proportioned flagship with a clear Jeep family resemblance.

Expected to makes it global debut toward the end of next year, the new Jeep seven-seater will join the compact Renegade, small Compass, Cherokee mid-sizer, revised Grand Cherokee and all-new Wrangler and Pickup, expanding the Jeep portfolio to seven individual models.

“Jeep has created a lot of expectations already [with the announcement of Wagoneer and Grand Wagoneer],” added Drelon.

“From customers, from dealers, from the press and even internally, there is a lot of anticipation… and a level of consistency with the request that we are pretty happy with.”