After making a identify for by itself virtually a 50 percent-century in the past, the Jeep Cherokee, which has endured off and on as a result of a range of iterations, has been chopped from the lineup. But the name will live on. Sort of.
What started off lifestyle as a human body-on-frame SUV in 1974 later on morphed into the resilient XJ constructed from 1984 to 2001, when it was replaced by the Liberty. The Cherokee also lived on as a result of accredited creation in China by 2014, when Jeep reintroduced the Cherokee title again into its North American lineup with a midsize crossover. But the Cherokee by then experienced misplaced its luster.
On March 1, Stellantis idled the Belvidere Assembly plant in Illinois, the place the Cherokee was created. There ended up suggestions that the plant be shuttered forever dependent on foreseeable future negotiations with the United Car Personnel.
Cherokee watchers could divine the close coming two months ago, soon after Jeep product planners radically slimmed down the Cherokee lineup to only two and minimized engine choices to a the natural way-aspirated inline-4 and a 270 horsepower turbo. If the Cherokee reemerges in some sort, it will very likely be in zero-emissions variety, as Jeep has made it obvious that it will establish electrified variants of all Jeep brand names by 2025.
At any fee, the Cherokee’s legacy (and its title) are living on the Grand Cherokee, a large, upscale SUV that was renewed with higher-tech touches and a plug-in hybrid providing in 2022.
The identify, in actuality, came under fire two decades back, when the main of the Cherokee Nation asked Jeep to end employing the tribe’s name on its vehicles. “I am absolutely sure this arrives from a area that is perfectly-supposed, but it does not honor us by owning our name plastered on the aspect of a motor vehicle,” Chuck Hoskin Jr., principal chief of the Cherokee Country, claimed at the time.