{"id":43672,"date":"2023-02-25T09:00:50","date_gmt":"2023-02-25T14:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/autosector.com\/?p=43672"},"modified":"2023-02-25T09:00:50","modified_gmt":"2023-02-25T14:00:50","slug":"junkyard-gem-1993-jeep-grand-cherokee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/?p=43672","title":{"rendered":"Junkyard Gem: 1993 Jeep Grand Cherokee"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jeep<\/a>, then part of the American Motors Corporation, introduced the unibody XJ Cherokee<\/a> for the 1984 model year, and suddenly there was a tough-looking truck<\/a> that drove like a car and got much better fuel economy<\/a> than the rest of the truck world. Ford<\/a> responded with the Explorer SUV for 1991<\/a>, and suddenly commuter trucks were everywhere<\/em>. Even before Chrysler<\/a> bought AMC in 1987, a snazzier successor to the Cherokee<\/a> was being cooked up in Kenosha; it debuted in the 1993 model year and was an instant sales success. Here’s one of those first-year Grand Cherokees, found in a Colorado wrecking yard last fall.<\/p>\n

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The Grand Cherokee<\/a> had a wheelbase four inches longer than that of the XJ Cherokee<\/a> (which, though a bit cramped by later SUV standards, was so beloved that production continued into our current century<\/a>), and the ’93 scaled in at 3,547 pounds versus 2,850 pounds for the ’93 four-door 4×4 XJ<\/a>. 30 years later, Stellantis is now building the fifth generation of the Grand Cherokee<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Lee Iacocca<\/a> didn’t have Chrysler buy American Motors because he wanted to build Renault Alliances<\/a> or AMC Concords<\/a>. No, what he really <\/em>wanted was the Jeep brand and especially the design that became this truck (Chrysler also scored big in that deal by getting the Eagle Premier<\/a>, which included the Renault-derived suspension design that went under the big-selling Chrysler LH cars of the 1990s and 2000s<\/a>, as well as the design of the AMC engine that became the PowerTech 4.7 V8<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n

The Grand Cherokee’s debut at the 1992 Detroit Auto Show<\/a>, in which Bob Lutz<\/a> drove it up Cobo Hall’s front steps and through a big plate-glass window, made a strong impression.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

In 1993<\/a>, the Ford Explorer<\/a> had but a single engine available: a 4.0-liter pushrod six-cylinder with ancestry stretching all the way back to the middle 1960s<\/a>. Its new Jeep rival had a 4.0-liter pushrod six-cylinder with ancestry stretching all the way back to the middle 1960s<\/a> as well, though Chrysler’s good old 318-cubic-inch (5.2-liter) V8<\/a> was available as an option.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

This straight-six engine was rated at 190 horsepower and 225 pound-feet; the Explorer’s<\/a> Cologne V6 made 145 horses and 220 pound-feet that year. If you go back the the 1970s, the ancestors of those two engines were powering AMC Gremlins<\/a> and Ford Capris<\/a>, respectively. If you go back another decade, they were found under the hoods of Rambler Classics<\/a> and Taunus 20Ms<\/a>. This sort of history is what makes these vehicles Junkyard\u00a0Gems<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

An Aisin-made five-speed manual transmission was base equipment in the 1993 Grand Cherokee, but nearly every buyer got the four-speed Chrysler Torqueflite automatic. The manual was available through 1994, then discontinued for the American market (those clutch-loving Europeans could still get the five-on-the-floor in their Grand Cherokees<\/a> for a while after that). A two-wheel-drive version was available, but this truck has Quadra-Trac four-wheel-drive.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

If this truck had retired 330.3 miles earlier, it could have ended its days with 222,222.2 miles showing on the odometer.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

A driver’s-side airbag<\/a> was standard equipment in the 1993 Grand Cherokee, a first for any SUV. Starting in late 1998, every new car<\/a> and light truck sold in the United States was required to have front airbags for both driver and passenger.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The success of the Explorer and Grand Cherokee during the first half of the 1990s made it clear that every vehicle manufacturer would need to sell comfortable, suburbia-optimized trucks or face cruel sales consequences in the very near future. This shift in American motoring tastes and the hurried response to it resulted in oddities such as Honda-<\/a> and Acura-badged Isuzu SUVs<\/a> hitting showrooms later in the decade.<\/p>\n\n

It was just an enlarged and slightly rounded XJ Cherokee<\/a>, but it was perfect for the triumphal mood of Americans in the years right after the end of the Cold War.<\/p>\n\n

Most Grand Cherokee owners never drive off-road, but then most Corvette<\/a> owners never set tire to race track. You\u00a0could<\/em>, and that’s what’s important.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jeep, then part of the American Motors Corporation, introduced the unibody XJ Cherokee for the 1984 model year, and suddenly there was a tough-looking truck that drove like a car and got much better fuel economy than the rest of the truck world. Ford responded with the Explorer SUV for 1991, and suddenly commuter trucks […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":43673,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43672","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-industry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43672","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=43672"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43672\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/43673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=43672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=43672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=43672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}