Jeep celebrates their iconic 75-year history
Jeep are in a funny old place at the moment. Fiat swooping in to save Chrysler helped keep them afloat, but it's also come with its fair share of problems. They range from the alleged falsifying of documents to employee lay offs.
Coupled with several recent coups around FCA's reliability, and it's quite easy to write off Jeep as a bit of an avoidable relic struggling to breathe the sea of ever improving SUVs and crossovers from Japan and South Korea.
But while those cars might be hip and cool now, there's one key difference that will always set Jeep apart; history.
Try and think of a car company that's as true to its roots as Jeep is. Yeah, some of their current cars contain a dash of Italian flavour, but they still endear themselves to their genealogy in today's market. It says a lot that just about the only compact SUV that embraces off-roading is Jeeps neat little Renegade.
It's somewhat fitting that the popular Renegade was launched in New Zealand on the year of Jeep's 75th anniversary — an anniversary that takes place this month. The marque have released this great video celebrating some of their most famous cars. What it does is underline how some platforms have changed, like the Cherokee; while others have stayed remarkably the same, like the Wrangler.
Porsche do rear-engined sports cars. Tesla does electric cars. Jeep, well they do four-wheel drives.