1966–1971 Jeep Super Wagoneer and Wagoneer Custom Special: These Luxury SUVs Were Way Ahead Of Their Time, So Why Didn’t They Sell?

 

The 1966–1969 Jeep Super Wagoneer and 1968–1971 Wagoneer Custom Special were the earliest regular-production examples of a now-common breed: posh upscale SUVs aimed squarely at monied buyers, with lofty price tags to match. However, neither the Super Wagoneer and Custom Special was a commercial success, and both were short-lived.

 

The original SJ Wagoneer, launched for the 1963 model year, was a landmark design: a relatively compact truck-based tall station wagon combining truck-like capability and car-like comfort. In a 1965 technical paper, Kaiser Jeep experimental engineer Paul B. Hartman described it as ” an economical, rugged, reliable, all-around, passenger-cargo-utility vehicle for pleasure, fun, and work.” In the ’60s, it was a niche product, still often sold as a working vehicle — there was even a panel delivery version early on — but for just under $200 extra, there was also a plusher Custom Wagoneer, offering what the brochure called “class enough for any dress-up affair.”

 

The great lesson of the postwar automotive scene was that if there’s a market for deluxe, there’s usually also a market for super deluxe, and so Kaiser Jeep soon came up with the idea of an even plusher Wagoneer aimed at the Town & Country set. This emerged for the 1966 model year as the Super Wagoneer, which made the auto show circuit in the fall of 1965. Kaiser didn’t get around to issuing a press release announcing the production version until the following March, although it was apparently on sale by December 1965.

 

Identified by the model number 1414D, the Super Wagoneer was a four-door Wagoneer 4WD with unique exterior and interior trim. Outside, it had anodized side and tailgate trim, a vinyl roof covering (although a few were apparently special-ordered without it), a roof rack, and special mag-style wheel covers.

 

Inside, the Super Wagoneer had classy vinyl upholstery, full carpeting, bucket seats, a center console with console shifter, wood trim on the doors and console, chrome ribs on the headliner, and a power rear window (though power side window lifts weren’t available).

 

The Super Wagoneer was offered only with a 270 hp (gross) four-barrel version of the new Vigilante V-8 (the AMC 327), Turbo Hydra-Matic, Saginaw power steering, and power brakes; a limited-slip differential was optional. I don’t think the 1414D was available in a 2WD version, so the Wagoneer’s short-lived independent front suspension option wasn’t available.

 

Unusually for this era, air conditioning and tinted windows were standard equipment on the Super Wagoneer, as were an AM radio and a tilt-and-telescope steering wheel. I think the small console-mounted clock was a dealer-installed accessory.

 

All of this made the Super Wagoneer a genuinely fancy truck, but it also brought the base price in 1966 to $5,978, which was firmly in the luxury car class — that was Cadillac de Ville territory. However, a Super Wagoneer was a vehicle of unique capabilities. It was civilized enough for placid highway cruising in air-conditioned comfort, but with its 4WD and two-speed transfer case, it could venture confidently into places a Cadillac or Lincoln would have to be air-lifted into or out of.

 

With its upright, boxy shape, the Wagoneer was also roomy and versatile, with up to 91 cu. ft. of cargo space.

 

Although it leaned a lot in turns, the Wagoneer handled surprisingly well by contemporary domestic standards, and its compact-car-size footprint made it easy to maneuver. The 270 hp V-8 and automatic gave the Super Wagoneer adequate power — 0 to 60 mph in 12.8 seconds and the quarter mile in 18.7 seconds, according to Motor Trend — and on-road fuel economy in 2WD mode was 12 to 15 mpg, reasonable enough for a 4,500 lb tall wagon with a carbureted 5.4-liter V-8.

 

(In mid-1968, the Vigilante 327 was phased out in favor of the new Dauntless 350, a small-block Buick engine with 230 hp.)

 

Twenty or thirty years later, such a mix of attributes would be a license to print money, but in its day, the Super Wagoneer was a rare sight, and it barely survived three and a half years. Kaiser Jeep didn’t compile model-specific production figures in this period, only calendar-year aggregates, but the most commonly quoted estimate for Super Wagoneer production is just 1,485 units: 657 in 1966, 455 in 1967, and 373 in 1968–1969. The Super Wagoneer was dropped early in the 1969 model year.

 

Kaiser Jeep didn’t immediately give up, introducing the conceptually similar Wagoneer Custom Special during 1968. The Super Wagoneer and Custom Special were available concurrently for a little while, but the Custom Special was essentially a Super Wagoneer successor.

 

Identified with the chassis code 1414X, the Custom Special kept most of the Super Wagoneer interior trim, but deleted the exterior dress-up and moved some of the Super’s standard features — in particular air conditioning — to the options list.

 

This brought the list price down to $5,671, $492 cheaper than the 1968 Super Wagoneer, although ordering air conditioning (which this blue Custom Special has) erased most of the difference.

 

I haven’t been able to find any estimates for Wagoneer Custom Special production, but it doesn’t appear it did any better than the Super Wagoneer, since it didn’t survive any longer: It was offered only through 1971, with 1971 models (built after the acquisition of Jeep by AMC) substituting the AMC 360 V-8 for the Buick Dauntless engine.

 

In later years, Jeep would again push the Wagoneer upmarket, adding the Wagoneer Limited in 1978 and the Grand Wagoneer for 1984. Lavishly equipped and extravagantly priced, it remained a reliable moneymaker through 1991. However, the Super Wagoneer and Wagoneer Custom Special were commercial flops.

Given how popular this type of vehicle has since become, why didn’t they sell better?

• They were really pricey. A Super Wagoneer cost almost $2,000 more than a Custom Wagoneer, which was already a $4,000 vehicle. The Custom Special was cheaper, but not much, especially if you wanted air conditioning (which was extra on the 1414X). For rich buyers looking for a posh shuttle for the family compound or country estate, it was only money, but I imagine the price tag provoked some sticker shock for middle-class buyers — a Super Wagoneer was not a small step up from the Custom Wagoneer.
• They didn’t hold their value well. Especially with the V-8 engine, the Wagoneer had decent residuals for a truck, but based on Kelley Blue Book values, a Super Wagoneer or Custom Special would shed well over half its value in the first year. The trade-in value of a year-old Custom Special was only about $50 more than that of the much cheaper V-8 Custom Wagoneer, with the air-conditioned Super Wagoneer commanding just $200 more than that. Not an issue for the upper crust, perhaps, but for more financially conscious buyers, a Coupe de Ville was a much better buy in financial terms.
• Kaiser Jeep didn’t have a big retail foothold. The Kaisers had always been more comfortable with government contracts than with the volatility of the retail market, and many of Jeep’s efforts to expand their market in this period had fallen short — until the AMC acquisition in 1970, Jeep just didn’t have the dealer body. I don’t know how many of its ’60s dealers were up to selling $6,000 luxury vehicles either; Jeep in those days still did a lot of business in very utilitarian fleet vehicles, many of them less than half the price of a Super Wagoneer. AMC (and later Chrysler) had the sales and marketing resources to make consumer-oriented Jeep models mainstream hits, but Kaiser really didn’t.

 

• They were awfully small. Viewed from an era in which massive front and rear overhang are no longer the primary signifiers of automotive opulence, the SJ’s proportions and dimensions seem perfectly normal, but in the late ’60s, the Wagoneer was the size of a compact car — 183.7 inches long on a 110-inch wheelbase, over 3 feet shorter than a contemporary Cadillac. If you weren’t old money or a movie star and were worried what the neighbors would think, the Super Wagoneer might seem too dinky for a luxury vehicle.
• If you just wanted a station wagon, there were plenty of other choices. In later years, the minivan and SUV hunted the traditional station wagon to extinction, but the 1960s were still a boom time for wagons. If you wanted passenger and cargo room and weren’t concerned about off-roading, a Ford Country Squire or Oldsmobile Vista Cruiser was a more orthodox choice, and still posh enough for affluent buyers.
• Their styling was an acquired taste. As with a lot of Brooks Stevens efforts, the Wagoneer looked like the product of an industrial designer or architect rather than an automotive stylist — a kind of Mid-Century Modern corrugated shoe box, more Richard Neutra than Bill Mitchell. Being detached from contemporary automotive styling trends made the SJ Wagoneer a durable design, undoubtedly contributing to its long and profitable production life, but a Super Wagoneer or Wagoneer Custom Special was aesthetically out of step with similarly priced contemporary luxury cars, vinyl top or no.

 

• They were still trucks. The eventual commercial triumph of the SUV was thanks in large part to the Baby Boom generation, many of whom had embraced pickup trucks and smaller SUVs in the ’70s and had fewer prejudices towards them than their parents’ generation had. For a typical affluent 40-something or 50-something buyer of the late 1960s, trucks and vans were for tradesmen, poor people, and greasy kids, not respectable middle-class suburban status seekers.
• They were maybe too nice for trucks. Here was the conundrum that still haunts the fancy truck market: A luxurious truck may be a highly capable vehicle, but the fancier it is, the less likely it is to ever be used for any of the rough or muddy work for which it was theoretically designed. If you were a well-heeled outdoorsy type who intended to make regular expeditions into the muck and mud, the fancy carpeting of the 1414D and 1414X might have been a deterrent, and for a hunting, fishing, or camping trip, the bench seats of the standard model or Custom Wagoneer probably made more sense than the pricier models’ buckets and console.

 

All this is a reminder that cars and trucks don’t exist in a vacuum. The Super Wagoneer and Custom Special had most of the ingredients that later made SUVs a commercial bonanza, but in the late ’60s, the automotive ecosystem that made luxury SUVs so successful didn’t yet exist, so they were only a minuscule chunk of a small niche. Depending on how different social, economic, and regulatory trends shape up, they might one day be that again.

Related Reading

Curbside Classic: 1968 Jeep Wagoneer – The Most Influential Vehicle Of The Post War Era – Not Just A Passing Fad (by Paul N)
Vintage Review: 1963 Jeep Wagoneer – Jeep’s I.F.S. Road To Nowhere (by Jon Stephenson)
Design Capsule: 1959 Willys Malibu and 1961 J-100 – The First Two Tries at Styling the 1963 Jeep Wagoneer (by Paul N)
Curbside Classics: Jeep Cherokee And Wagoneer SJ – Brief Initiation Into Jeep’s 4×4 Might (by Rich Baron)
Vintage R&T Review: 1978 Jeep Wagoneer Limited – “Can You Imagine An American Manufacturer Building the Same Body For 15 Years?” How About 29 Years! (by Paul N)
Curbside Classic: 1979 Jeep Wagoneer Limited – Unlimited Appeal (by Tatra87)
Curbside Capsule: 1984-91 Jeep XJ Wagoneer Limited – Social Climber (by William Stopford)