We put about 4500 test miles on our Jeep Cherokee four-door and found it to be a strangely loveable vehicle. The basic Jeep Wagoneer from which it springs has been with us for a very long time, but somehow the Wagoneer never captured much front-of-mind awareness. We watched Joe Foss driving one across the Golden West on Sunday-afternoon television, and we saw sort of gray, hard-to-classify suburban burghers hauling their families around in them, but the Wagoneer never seemed like a contender. It never jerked you around and forced you to speculate about how you and it might get along—the way, for instance, an all-white four-wheel-drive Suburban with Jackman wheels and knobby tires does.
It is a measure of marketing's hold on us that we tested this particular Cherokee at all. We'd probably never have tested a Wagoneer, but when we heard that Jeep was coming out with a four-door version of its very attractive Cherokee two-door, we fell for it. Never mind that it's just a Wagoneer with less luxurious trim and a Cherokee grille; never mind that we're supposed to be cool, dispassionate experts. The marketers gave it another name, and we fell for it. Maybe Vance Packard was right. Maybe they do know how to press a button and send us marching mindlessly down to the showrooms. Seems unlikely though, because if AMC actually had such a button, it would have been pressed long before this.
We deliberately ordered a rather conservatively equipped Cherokee. We wanted to examine a medium-priced vehicle that the median consumer might actually buy. Thus our test truck had a 258-cubic inch six-cylinder engine, HydraMatic transmission with Jeep's neat Quadra-Trac full-time four-wheel drive, optional mag-type wheels and black on/off-road tires, an AM radio and little else. No fender flares, no 11-inch rims, no mind-blowing stereo tape system—just the important basics. We feared at first that we might have legislated ourselves into a too-tame test machine, but we were wrong. From the minute we fired it up and drove it away from AMC's rectilinear glass superbox headquarters in Detroit till we dropped it off a month and 4500 miles later, we enjoyed one of those rare good times that only happen when the vehicle and the people seem to be meant for each other.
The base price was $5673, but almost $2300 worth of what we called "important basics" brought the sticker price to $8000. The world has indeed turned upside down when we can blithely describe something costing $8000 as a "medium priced vehicle," but there you are. The priciest items in the accessory list were air-conditioning at $509, HydraMatic with Quadra-Trac at $345 and the Cherokee "S" package at $599. The "S" package contains all the stuff you thought was simply part of the vehicle (the armrests, cirgarette lighter, ash trays, dual horns, carpets, vinyl seats et al.) that make the difference between a light reconnaissance vehicle and something you wouldn't mind driving every day.
The Cherokee/Wagoneer configuration seems to approach the ideal for station wagons. It has lots of space for people and stuff, and it's boxy enough to make all the space useful. It lacks the third seat available in vans, Suburbans and full-size station wagons, but all that means is that it probably won't see much use as a school bus.
Better still, with a 109-inch wheelbase and overall length of only 183.7 inches, it is only about the same size overall as a Chevrolet Blazer/GMC Jimmy, much smaller and lower than a Suburban and still offers the very real utilitarian advantages of a four-door wagon—but a wagon with extra ground clearance and full-time four-wheel-drive capability that really can go anywhere and do anything. Adding to its charm is the fact that Jeep's approach to four-wheel drive keeps the sill height low enough that your wife and/or girl friend won't need a step ladder to enter or exit. Keeping it low may not have the macho let-it-all-hang-out appeal of those mile-high Ford 4x4 pickups you see everywhere these days, but it sure makes the Jeep easier to live with.
