Before there was a Range Rover. Long before Lexus was even an idea. Back when the only competition for the industrial grade Chevrolet Suburban was the farm grade International Travelall. Jeep invented the sort-of-luxurious, four-wheel drive, oversize station wagon. No one called it an SUV. It was the Wagoneer.
There was nothing Grand about it. Well, not yet.
Glenn Evans, an investment advisor for Mass Mutual in Los Alamitos, California has owned this 1977 Wagoneer since 1995. “Guess how much I paid for it,” he taunted in a phone conversation. “I don’t know,” I replied calculating the value of then 18 year-old Jeeps during the mid-1990s in my mind. “Nope,” he said. “Half that. $1200.”
Even back then, that was stone cheap. “An older guy down the street from me owned it. And he had a sign on it that had ‘Make Offer.’” Explains Evans. “’Tell you what,’ I said. ‘I’ll pay $1200 and give you visitation rights. You can come drive it any time you like.’ That closed the deal.” Good deal.
If Evans’ office hadn’t been behind a Starbucks in Los Alamitos, it never would have been spotted.
Willys Jeep had built “Utility Wagons” since the Model 463 in 1946 and that, it has been asserted, is the first SUV. There was utility, but no one thought in terms of “sport” back then. Versions of the 463 stayed in production through 1964, a few months after it was superseded by this subject, the Wagoneer.
The 1963 Wagoneer (“SJ” in Jeep-ese) was significantly larger than the Willys Jee Utility Wagon and far more usable thanks to the availability of a four-door bodystyle. Two-door and two-door panel versions were also offered, but it was the four-door that brought families who needed four-wheel drive ability into the Jeep showrooms.
Built as a body-on-frame vehicle, the first Wagoneer used either an independent swing-axle front suspension on most models (two- or four-wheel drive) with a solid axle on heavier duty versions. The four-wheel drive system was
There was only one engine offered in that first Wagoneer, a 230-cubic inch (3.8-liter), overhead cam, straight six rated at a lame 140-horsepower. Not a lot of thump for hauling around six people and their stuff, but there wasn’t anything else quite like it on the market. So, it was a hit.
The Wagoneer got V-8 power as an option for the 1965 model year when the 327-cubic inch (5.3-liter) AMC V8 was dumped into the engine bay. It was gross-rated at 250 horsepower.
Fully a dozen years after that, Evans’ Wagoneer was being built. The standard engine was now a 360-cubic inch (5.9-liter) version of the AMC V8 with the 401-cubic inch (6.6-liter) version of the same engine optional. Evans’ Wagoneer has the 401 net-rated at 215 horsepower.
“This thing’s a tank,” says Evans who uses it on his fly fishing adventures. “It loves dirt roads. I don’t drive it every day, but about every two weeks. I’ve had it so long and it’s become such a head-turner.” His daily is a 2009 Audi A8.
The Wagoneer became the Grand Wagoneer in 1984 when it was joined in the Jeep line by the smaller XJ vehicles which included a model that was given the Wagoneer name. And the SJ wouldn’t leave production until after 29 model years. When it was finally offed by Jeep’s owner Chrysler in 1991, it was the last new vehicle still using a carburetor.
Though Evans’ Wagoneer shows 146,000 miles on its odometer, the values of old SUVs, and old Wagoneers in particular, has been skyrocketing. “A guy drove by my home recently and stopped when he saw it,” Evans tells. “He asked me, ‘What’s your stupid high price on it?’ I thought a moment and came back, ‘$30,000.’ He thought a moment. ‘I know that’s too much. Maybe $12,000 too much. Or $15,000. But I want it.’ But I turned him down.
By any analysis, $30,000 is a good return on a vehicle that only cost $1200 to buy and has given 25 years of service. “Yeah,” Evans the financial planner explains. “It’s a great return on the money. But because I’ve planned well enough, I didn’t need to take it.”
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