How’s this for a refreshing and colorful change from all of the monochromatic look-alike SUVs that the next generation is riding in. Not everyone wants their kids to remember the back of a dark cave, as there’s a baby and kiddie seat in the back of this orange and white Wagoneer. And from the looks of it, this is a very deliberate and choice. It’s in splendid shape, most likely the result of a recent refresh, if not more. Now if only I could pin the exact year down, which can be surprisingly challenging, given the games Jeep played with the grille and other trim details (update: it’s a ’77).
This grille came along in 1966, for the luxurious Super Wagoneer, which would preview the direction the Wagoneer would eventually embrace in its later years as the Grand Wagoneer.
This one is from at least 1973, because that’s the year Quadra-Trac full-time AWD arrived.
But the grille appears not to match the ones from this era. Of course that could have been changed out; the simplicity of this design grille was much better than all of the weird designs that appeared during the 70s and 80s.
The upholstery suggests a bit later in the 70s too.
Here’s proof that this Wagoneer is still hauling kiddies. How many generations have ridden back here?
Looks like the remnants of a former swing-away rear spare holder.
I’m going to assume that the accessory window “awnings” and twin spot lights are original.
This young family clearly knows what it wants in an SUV. More power to them.
I might be showing my age, but hey, just by being seen I show my age, so … man, I really like these, and I think they look good.
The only one of these that would interest me is the original 1962-1964 narrow-grill version:
As the tooling for the front did not change, you can actually get simple kits to change any of the production years to this face. I also like the narrow grill with round headlights and wonder why they chose the grill on this one. I guess it is all a matter of taste, and more power to them for making it and owning what they love.
Edit, the grill on this one appears original to the date of the vehicle. My bad!
The early Wagoneers also had an OHC six-cylinder engine and a funky torsion-bar independent front suspension was available as an option on 4WD models.
My aunt and uncle had a ’66. I thought it was the coolest wagon going. Our ’59 Ford ranch wagon was just so lame in comparison!
I still see a few of these old timers here in NM but then again rust really isn’t an issue here.
Back in Ohio where I grew up the Wagonneers and Gladiator pickups seemed to just melt away after a time… to rust you shall return.
Since i am not an expert on american SUVs,How bad are those older ones compare to new ones on petrol?just curious.great looking classic jeep indeed.the fact that still after afew decades is still in such of great shape is the sign of quality.
These were like most other American cars at the time. Something of its weight range with a mid sized V8 (like a 360) would probably see around 11-13 mpg around town and maybe 15-16 on the highway. The aerodynamics of these were not great, so they would probably not have seen the boost in mpg on the highway that most other vehicles would have seen. Maybe those with specific Jeep experience will tell me I’m all wet, but when dealing with cubic inches and carburetors, this was the range I would expect to see.
Thank you for answering my question.my dad’s2014 landcruiser returns about 15_17 MPG on highway.not much improvement on fuel efficiency in past afew decades i quess when it comes to trucks& full size suvs.
My brother’s 1976 would do no better than 10 to the gallon in a 360. That was around town. He claims he took it on the highway once but I don’t believe him. I wouldn’t be able to give you a real estimate on that one.
I had a 1977 Cherokee with 360 with factory Motorcrap 4-bbl. It would get ~17mpg on the highway.
That carb had the usual flat spots & such when cold, but ran well when warm.
The person I sold it to had someone put on a Q-jet; road mileage went to ~11.
BTW- I’ve had a number of tall & square vehicles, the only one that would get over ~17 mpg on the road was a 1960 40-hp VW bus.
That looks to me like perhaps a mishmash of Wagoneer and Cherokee parts from the 70s. That grille shouldn’t be on a Wagoneer newer than the 60s, but those seats are definitely later in the 70s. Perhaps there was some front end damage, or maybe the owner just liked the older grille better. In any case, I like it a lot.
That orange just screams 1970s. At the time, I hated orange as much as my father loved it. When he bought a new speedboat around 1976 that was off-white with a big orange stripe and orange vinyl interior he was in hog heaven. Had he been a Jeep guy, he would probably have bought one just like this.
That looks to me like perhaps a mishmash of Wagoneer and Cherokee parts from the 70s.
I came to the same conclusion. As someone else noted, the interior is likely not original either.
I disagree- Jeep would use, discard, then bring back all sorts of trim parts. The seats, interior, outside color & trim look like original stuff. My 1977 Cherokee [4-door, narrow axles] had that type grille from factory, along with the panel truck taillights.
Seats/console like that were available in 2-door Cherokee, I’m willing to believe they’re factory.
It was yellow in our family: yellow Beetles, yellow Rabbit, yellow Subaru….
This must be “Kids Riding In Quirky Old Jeeps” Month… I recently photographed a Jeep Scrambler with two car seats in the back. I couldn’t help thinking that riding around in one of these old Jeeps probably develops some plucky kids!
Great shots, Paul! I like the vintage air deflectors at the back end, though I’d be surprised if they made any difference in mileage. Very sharp full size Jeep that’s in nice shape but not overdone.
I rather miss the days when vehicles were sold that were very clearly from a different era. Full size Chevy and Ford (E-series, still available as chassis cabs) vans are the only ones I can think of that still somewhat do, and even their current styling only dates back to the 90s, which doesn’t seem as stark of a difference as when these were offering 60s styling in the 90s.
Those top and side air deflectors were designed to keep the rear window clean by grabbing laminar air and directing over the window. They slightly increased aerodynamic drag as a result.
1965-1968 Ford County Squires and Country Sedans had the side versions integrated into their D-Pillars.
I’d guess they were also for redirecting the cloud of exhaust that gets trapped behind the tailgate, and that gets sucked back into the cabin. I have a ’76 Scout that my eight-year-old daughter loves to ride in; I’m trying to figure out how to solve this problem myself.
They were little help for that; but that is the exact reason a lot of wagons (the aforementioned Country Squire as an example) had side exhaust outlets immediately behind the rear wheels instead of out the back like their Galaxie counterparts.
That is a very square-bodied vehicle that tends to create a low-pressure area behind it as it goes along the road. With anything like a straight-out-the-back tailpipe you’re pulling exhaust along with you, which is (at best) unpleasant. Station wagons, vans, and minivans of many makes and models for many years tended to have side- (and down-) discharge tailspouts to avoid the pull-along.
See to it that your tailspout is 90° to the longitudinal axis of the vehicle and has about a 45° downward outlet. Don’t have its outlet directly behind a rear wheel’s mudflap, which creates a low-pressure area of its own (extend the tailspout to outboard of the mudflap as necessary). Make sure the tailgate and backglass have good seals and keep them fully closed while driving. And go on a scouting(!) mission to find and plug holes in the floorpan and body that will tend to admit exhaust.
Very good advice. It’s not just cars that have this problem; I recall an issue concerning houseboats a few years ago. Apparently a poorly-designed boat will vent generator exhaust to be trapped under the swim platform, creating a literal dead air zone for someone unlucky enough to linger there. Let’s be careful out there, whatever the mode of transportation.
It looks like a 1973 or 1974 to me. We had a 1975 with full di-noc, and I think 1974 was the last year of the narrow wood siding strip. I think the interior might be a transplant, however, as we had a front bench (in black and white checkered vinyl) and separate fixed shoulder belts in the roof, and this Jeep has the “buckets” and appears to have a bracket for three point belts, even if they are not in place…
That’s my guess as well, that somebody did a seat swap from a later model (hey, when you’re walking through Pick-n-Pull on a half-price weekend, sometimes you end up bringing unexpected parts home 😉
“I think 1974 was the last year of the narrow wood siding strip”
My family had a ’77 Wagoneer with the narrow wood strip, just like this one. I think 1978 was the last year for it.
Yes you’re right! I did some further research and found the the full di-nov came on the 1975 Custom Wagoneer and then was discontinued until it returned in 1978. And apparently the buckets we available for quite some time. So who knows what year it was!
Nice find.
What are the pieces on the rear pillars – deflectors to keep the rear window clear?
Popular accessory on 60s Australian station wagons to keep the rear window transparent also available a long version for the roof they were only partially successful though.
Paul, anyway we look at it, this old Jeep is a honey. Thanks for bringing it to the site. My 1965 and 1968 International Travelall wagons (today’s SUV’s) were powered by IH’s V-304 8-cylinder engine. The transmission was a Borg-Warner three-speed automatic BUT the torque converter ratio was 3.5:1 which was much higher than the average transmission of the time that had 2.0:1. The rear axle was a 3.31:1 ratio. City mileage was 13 mpg. Highway was 15 mpg. The engine was designed for trucks up to 24,500 pounds Gross Vehicle Weight Rating (GVWR). So, this vehicle would carbon up. A good two-hour run at 60 MPH would clean out the lug and when I would get off the highway the engine would be purring. To my 1968 I added a Blaupunkt power antenna and a Blaupunkt AM/FM stereo radio.
Folks, as I noted above, my family had a ’77 Wagoneer. All interior and exterior trim pieces, including seats, dash etc was identical to this one, except for the Cherokee grille and the wind deflectors. I also do not recognize that spare – tire bracket.
So, except for those parts, I would guess this is all -original ’76-’78 Wagoneer.
My brother-in-law had a Cherokee in a similarly happy orange. He stepped down to a red Saturn SUV. Then to a
Sheeple–grey Subaru.
BOOOO!! HISS!!!!
Now this…… Is a true collectible SUV.
CC Effect — I saw this somewhat newer relative at a service station today:
That looks like a full size Cherokee…..The full size Cherokee was discontinued after 1983 or so when MAC brought out the downsized Cherokee.
What lucky kids they to ride around in this nice Jeep as opposed to riding around in a black cave like almost all do today. They can experience the ride and all the visual simulation like kids used to be able to do. At least their ride is not an experience in tunnel vision.
Companies today still restore and sell these old Wagoneer’s. Seems to be a pretty good demand for pristine examples and they sell for big bucks.
http://www.wagonmaster.com/
http://www.wagoneerworld.com/
An old Motorweek test
The vehicle pictured is not a Jeep Super Wagoneer, which were built by Kaiser only from mid-year 1965 to 1969. I know as I owned one, a 1969 model. Super Wagoneers, which cost in-period as much as a Cadillac or Lincoln sedan, over $6,000, were distinguished from lesser Wagoneers by their vinyl roofs, gold anodized side trim (where wood would be in later models), and unique exterior identification on the outside. On the inside they sported bucket seats, a center console (apparently sourced from AMC before AMC bought Jeep from Kaiser in 1970) and a standard A/C setup that was installed where the center glove box was on non-Super Wagoneers.
I detailed all this in a story I wrote for Classic American in the UK more than a decade ago. Here’s a link to the PDF.
http://photos.imageevent.com/mmm_mag/richtruesdellpdfs/UK%201969%20Jeep%20Super%20Wagoneer%20Classic%20American.pdf
And attached is a photo of my Super Wagoneer taken back in 2002 at the Planes of Fame Museum in Chino, California. The Super Wagoneer was and remains the first luxury SUV, a title often claimed falsely, by the Range Rover.
Rather ironical the 327 V8 they sourced from AMC is the one that Kaiser was supposedly developing and the engineer on the project took the blueprints and went to work for AMC developing the 1st gen AMC V8(250-287-327) when Kaiser shut down their Kaiser automotive division.
Yes, rather ironic, the engineer was named Dave Potter who took the plans from Kaiser to make the first-gen AMC (250-287-327) V-8.
My 1969 Jeep Super Wagoneer had a Buick 350 V-8 with a TH400 transmission. AMC switched to the Buick V-8 in 1967 when the supply of the 327s dried up, probably because they were already buying the 215 V-6 from Buick at the time for the smaller Jeeps. By that time they had also stopped the production of their own OHC I-6 (sent the tooling to Argentina where the oiling problems were addressed and it had a long life into the 1980s under the hood of the IKA Torino, which was a modified 1964-65 Rambler American).
Just a little AMC and Kaiser trivia.
> AMC switched to the Buick V-8 in 1967 when the supply of the 327s dried up, probably because they were already buying the 215 V-6 from Buick at the time for the smaller Jeeps.
Did you mean Kaiser? AMC didn’t own Jeep until 1970.
Quite nice how they neatly integrated the A/C into the center of the dash on the Super Wagoneer. I wonder why they didn’t retain this setup, instead regressing by using A/C vents hung underneath the dash like an aftermarket unit on later models, even on early-’90s Grand Wagoneers.
I see a green 69? Wagoneer at work sometimes.
gotta love when you find your waggy as the subject of so much debate. It’s a 77 factory special order in tawny orange. It has 60k miles on it, having been a barn find out of Boise. It is a factory 401, with factory sunroof! I don’t know the history on the grill, but the interior is original. THanks for all the interest, it helps justify all the time I’ve spent on it getting it going again.
Thanks for filling us in. I’ve seen it around town a couple of times since then. Nice Jeep!
So, random surfing and, hey, that’s my Wagoneer! I believe this was in Portland when this post was made, now lives in Colorado. Still generating smiles everywhere it goes.
Hey Chris, I’d love to see what’s become of it….
We really liked our Wagoneer. It broke so many times, however, with the same parts needing replacement, over and over, so I fixed it one last time and gave it to the cleaning lady.