,Here’s two somewhat unusual and uncommon variants/ re-badges of two once-common and popular cars: the Jeep Cherokee (XJ) and the Hyundai Excel. The Cherokee is of course one of the all-time iconic vehicles in the modern age, (full CC here), worthy of its esteemed place on the top of Mt. Olympus (which it got to under its own mortal four wheel drive). As an ex-Cherokee owner, my CC is of course something of a paean. Anyway, its easy to forget that the Cherokee had a woody brother for the first couple of years, the (un-Grand) Wagoneer.
The little Wagoneer was of course designed to replace its big hulking gas-slurping brother, but like the FWD Ford Probe was supposed to replace the Mustang, the RWD originals endured and long outlived their usurpers. The Wagoneer/Cherokee were designed right at the height of the early eighties energy crisis, but by the time they hit the dealers in 1984, oil prices were in their very long decline. The Grand Wagoneer was given a stay of execution, and soldiered on through 1991. But the little Wagoneer was long gone by then. Ironically, it was designed to have as much or more interior passenger space as the big guy, whose design dated back to 1963. But space and fuel efficiency was not the driving force behind the decision to buy a Grand Wagoneer; pretty much the exact opposite. Meanwhile, the little Wagoneer never found much of a niche.
The Mitsubishi Precis is nothing more than a Hyundai Excel, badged so that Mitsubishi had a rock-bottom entry-level car to sell between 1987 and 1994. In case you’ve forgotten the story from our Dodge Colt/Champ CC, there was a big little reason for Mitsubishi to be selling this car: it shared its engine and many other components with the Dodge Colt/Champ/Mitsubishi Mirage. So really, Mitsubishi was just keeping its old Colt going in the form of the Precis. Convenient for the parts department too.
These Hyundais have a pretty bad rep, from the rough start they had in the US. Hyundai had been building the very crude and simple RWD Pony for years, and the Excel was its first huge step into modern FWD cars. Just like GM and other companies stubbed their toes with a major transition like this, so did Hyundai. They should have waited a couple of years before they jumped into the US market. And while the very first few years of Excels really were pretty shaky, they got better pretty quickly. But Hyundai’s rep was already damaged, and it took some heavy lifting to get it back. And did they ever!
It’s amazing how much the smaller (XJ) Wagoneer mimicked its larger brother the Grand Wagoneer in content and appointments. It was a very nicely trimmed vehicle. Being an XJ it could go virtually anywhere even without extensive modification if the driver knew what he or she was doing.
If the driver knew what he was doing AND Selec-Trac hadn’t chosen to break in 2WD.
This version of the grille was the only one that could ruin the beefy good looks of the XJ Cherokee. Somehow those over/under lights screamed “67 Ambassador”. Is that really the vibe they wanted to bring to mind? Or maybe its just me.
This week has been a great reminder of the truly strange world that is/was Mitsubishi. Strange decision after strange decision. And here we are.
You’re not alone, I was writing my comment when yours came up!?
I was just wondering how far down the comments list we’d get before *someone* mentioned the ’67 Ambassador.
Personally, I like this grille better than the one the XJ Wagoneer was launched with – similar to the Cherokee’s but in chrome with more, finer bars – but prefer the Cherokee look.
65 and 66 as well, y’all. Never made the connection until you guys pointed it out.
I actually prefer this grille/headlight setup to the standard Cherokee. To me, it looked more substantial — but then again, I like Ambassadors, so maybe that’s where my bias comes from.
Aesthetically, well, that’s a matter of taste. I’m a form-follows-function guy; drive the Wagoneer and Cherokee both at night, and you might change your mind. Those stupid GM miniature sealed beams were and are junk. Too small to do more than a bare-legal-minimum job.
Plus amber rear turn signals.
I thought for once I’d let someone else mention those 😉
While amber turn signals are not a NHTSA mandated requirement on vehicles in the United States, they are mandated by a few state laws. Ohio is one of those states. It is rarely enforced, obviously. This is actually done because yellow is proven to be the most visible color of the entire spectrum band, and is also the reason that school buses are painted yellow. It is for increasing the safety of the vehicle operator, and in the case of buses, the children.
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No, sir, you are quite mistaken. Ohio’s requirement is that turn signals emit red or amber light to the rear. There are no states that require amber rear turn signals, because they’re not allowed to require them. Under 49 U.S.C. 30103(b), no state or political subdivision of a state may prescribe, effect, or enforce a vehicle safety standard different or more stringent than the applicable Federal standard. The Federal standard permits rear turn signals to be red or amber, so states are not permitted to require only amber; any such language on a state’s lawbooks is legally null and void. Likewise a state couldn’t require rear shoulder belts or airbags before Federal standards required them, a state can’t require green front turn signals, etc. Some state codes are less stringent than the Federal standards (Federal standard says front turns have to be amber; some states still have ancient rules allowing amber or white, for example), and states are allowed to regulate items not covered by the Federal standard (a state could ban fog lamps completely), and states can regulate equipment usage (a state could require that the left turn signal be used whenever the vehicle is going more than 47 mph, each state gets to set its own rules on when headlamps must be used, etc).
Also, while yellow has conspicuity advantages in traffic, it is not “the most visible color of the entire spectrum”.
While “Chrome Yellow” has been standard for school buses, I’ve always heard that most humans are most sensitive to green. For whatever that’s worth.
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You’re right. Yellow’s not far off, but the photopic curve (human spectral sensitivity when it’s light out, represented by dashed line in this image) peaks at a yellow green, which is why there was a wave of painting fire trucks fluorescent “lime yellow” for awhile (they were involved in fewer crashes but traditionalists screamed bloody murder about it, so red came back). The scotopic curve (human spectral sensitivity when it’s dark out, represented by the dotted line in this image) peaks at a blue green.
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You’re right. Yellow’s not far off, but the photopic curve (human spectral sensitivity when it’s light out, represented by dashed line in this image) peaks at a yellow green, which is why there was a wave of painting fire trucks fluorescent “lime yellow” for awhile (they were involved in fewer crashes but traditionalists screamed bloody murder about it, so red came back). The scotopic curve (human spectral sensitivity when it’s dark out, represented by the dotted line in this image) peaks at a blue green.
It always did seem a bit anachronistic to me given the angular, modern styling of the rest of the vehicle. No surprise when they disappeared.
The front end of the Wagoneer is the most AMC looking than anything else Jeep made. Oddly it came out at the very end of AMC! ?
If there’s an award for the most obscure badge-engineered car of the 1980s, the Precis would likely win. I think I forgot about them while they were still being sold!
If I recall, the only difference, other than the badges themselves, was that the Precis had red turn signal lenses, instead of amber.
Although when the original Jeep Compass came out I saw hints of Pacer in the headlight/turn signal relationship and of the Gremlin in the window line.
Oh,man! You’re right!? I forgot about that one!, For the hell of it they should have gone full Pacer on the nose! ?
I forget them in real time too, In fact, When I saw “Precis” in the title of this post, my mind read it as “Prius” ?
The only reason I remember them is that I have an auto-show brochure for the ’88 Precis. Haven’t noticed one on the road in…forever, but then again I only see probably one or two 1st-gen Excels per year since the turn of the millennium.
Here’s a brown one. Last time I saw a précis was in nh 15 years ago, where a gas station had 2 of them for sale.
I remember as a kid a friend of my grandfather had a XJ Wagoneer. I don’t remember if it was a 1987 or an earlier Chevy powered model but I do remember it was the first vehicle with the remote door unlocking feature I saw! The remote had a Renault sign on it.
I had two XJ cherokees, one was a 1988 Limited and the other one was a 1989 Laredo. The Limited was still showing with an AMC logo on ths sticker on it’s firewall and as a product of “Jeep corporation”. It still had a 1987 grille and I remember the door panels being stamped as “1987 1/2”. The 1989 was badged as a Chrysler product and even it’s GM key had a Chrysler logo on it!
After the Wagoneer was discontinued, there was a Briarwood model of the Cherokee that still featured the woodgrain paneling but this model had a regular Cherokee grille and taillights.
And if I remember correctly the Jeep had the same front seats as a Renault Fuego.
The XJ was designed to have as much or more interior space than the SJ? Really? That can’t be right. I’ve never ridden in an SJ but it *had* to have more rear legroom than the Cherokee, which was cramped for anyone who was more than 5’5″ or so. Not to mention the cargo area was both wider and taller, unless that was an optical illusion.
That doesn’t sound right to me either, though I suppose it’s possible. The miserable ingress/egress from the narrow rear door is the memory that sticks in my head, Don’t really remember it feeling cramped or not back there, but then again it was 20 years ago I was last back there and I was like 7 last time I was anywhere near an XJ. SJs do seem bigger though, but I think that may be because the only one I’ve ever been inside was a very bare bones 60s model with bench seats, and bench seat interiors tend to seem bigger than they really are, to me anyway.
There was some sort of reasoning behind Mitsu Precis. At the time the US government imposed the Japanese import quota, which I believe was based on prior years sales for that automaker.
This actually helped to create a couple of things. One, the odd Precis. Since it wasn’t manufactured in Japan, it didn’t fall under the scope of the quota. Mitsu could sell as many Precis’ as they liked. Which it seemed the public didn’t like. Another result of the quota, was fuel added to Japanese makers going upmarket. If you can only sell so many vehicles, then lets make sure we sell the most expensive ones. Hence, Lexus, Acura, Infiniti.
I wonder if Paul would be biased against these base model Jeeps, if he knew they were actually powered by the Chevrolet 2.8L V-6, as an engine option?
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And as far as the Hyundai, well, the Kim Jong Illenators from Korea seem to have a good reputation, despite having as many recalls as anything from the Big Three.
I would hope I knew what was under the hood of our ’85 Cherokee, that we owned for 15 years and 180k miles. If you’d clicked on the link in the article where I referred to our Cherokee, you’d have known it too.
The 2.8 V6 was ok; it was a bit underpowered and yet thirsty. But it was reliable; the only major issue was having to replace the very expensive carb. We managed to escape the very common bad rear seal issue. That’s not to say the rest of the Cherokee was equally reliable. Should have bought a 4Runner! 🙂
I had an ’86 XJ Pioneer with a 5-speed and the 2.8 V6. The carb was a little problematic, as it would sometimes starve out and kill the engine the engine between shifts while going around a curve. Once that issue was solved (probably more young driver error than anything), that Jeep gave me four years of great service, and survived a huge amount of abuse. Plenty of grunt if applied with a light touch. Last I heard, my uncle sold it off around 2002, still running strong.
It had a Chevrolet 60° V-6 engine and drive train. Of course it would last a long time. Had it been the Chrysler automatic four speed, from ZF, that thing would have been a 6’x6′ cube of crushed metal, many years ago……
And as far as carburetors are concerned, gravity and centrifugal force can affect a carburetor. Summit Racing and many other performance parts suppliers will often sell specifically designed carburetors for dirt track and off-road applications, that are designed to provide correct fuel ratios during hard cornering/g-forces being applied to the vehicle. Regularly designed carbs for street cars would have this problem, when used off-road or on a race track.
Squarokees in any trim get my vote, though the four square headlight era in any car leaves me anticipating the modern era/wishing for pre 1940s. Those of us who matured in the ’50s – ’70s were weaned on 20 years of legally acceptable round headlights that we associated with eyes on carbon based objects, so when the gov approved versions with corners, we found the change to be, at once, exhilarating and cringeworthy. The wonderful shapes that Detroit came up with before the sealed beam law took effect and after it ended still have a whiff of the unnatural to some of us.
For decades Jeep has consecutively scored near the bottom JD Powers list, and a frequent cars to avoid in Consumer’s Reports. I had an ’86 Cherokee base model when I worked as a tool salesman. I absolutely hated that Cherokee. It had the horrible Chevy 2.8 liter. It drank gas like a V8, leaked oil, ran hot, had to run premium fuel or it pinged, was slow, driving position was extremely awkward, cramped interior, electrical and mechanical problems galore, etc. I was elated when my company finally rid their fleet of those crappy Cherokees and brought in new ’91 Nissan pick ups and Pathfinders. Those were awesome trucks!
Paul is a Chrysler fanboy, and known GM hater. Any reputable mechanic will tell their customer/friends to avoid Chrysler products.
We LOVE Chryslers, at our salvage yard, in Ohio. Chrysler makes my family literal millionaires, because we are always selling parts off their junk vehicles(namely transmissions).
Joshua, lifetime GM fan here.
Paul is not a known Chrysler fanboy/GM hater. In fact I think he’s been fair-handed – I disagree with him about Subaru – but that’s about it. And I’ve been reading Paul since his TTAC days.
Yes, ChryCo vehicles over the past 20 years have become junkyard fodder. When an ignition module fails and the replacement also entails towing the vehicle to a MoPar dealer to reset the computer at $100 a pop, that’s a bridge too far for many owners of late-90s ChryCos. The 2.7 V6 wasn’t a bad engine, but Mother MoPar placing the catalytic converters snug to the engine – boosting internal oil temperatures – killed many of them.
But it wasn’t always this way at Mother MoPar. The K-Cars and their 31,954 different derivatives were mostly reliable and well-built. Chrysler’s powertrains were once unassailable, it’s why so many of them found their way into race cars.
I could go on, but there are sites like Allpar that tell the story quite well, warts and all.
As for GM, to be of driving age in the 80s and 90s was to either come to hate GM or be thoroughly embarrassed by them. To drive an ’86 Taurus and then any GM FWD A-body counterpart for comparison…well, there was NO comparison. For decades, their drivetrains were their ONLY redeeming factor, and even that comes with a boatload of caveats.
4.3 W motor? Put intake gaskets in it first, then they’ll run forever.
Turbo 700? Get a 1987-newer version, they’re bulletproof. The 1986-prior versions self-destructed in two years.
I could write a book!
The facts are MILLIONS of people driving Toyota/Honda/Hyundai etc. today, drove GM 20-30 years ago, or their parents did.
The General DROVE them away!
Ask yourself…how does a company with a 53% market share in 1980 fall to 15-17% today?
If you haven’t read it, I recommend Peter DeLorenzo’s (www.autoextremist.com) outstanding tome “The United States Of Toyota.” Peter grew up around the corner from GM designing legend Bill Mitchell. His dad spent decades in GM Public Relations before Peter himself spent a few decades himself creating advertising for GM products.
Paul’s “GM Deadly Sin” series has been spot-on, IMO. They get the most attention because they knew better. They got to a 53% market share not just by brilliant marketing, but by simply building the best vehicles on Earth.
And then they got arrogant. Cynical. Their fall to bankruptcy is as much if not more due to poor product planning/execution/customer service as it is to crushing legacy costs.
Of course everyone has their Deadly Sins. FCA is producing Deadly Sins right now. I frankly don’t expect the company to be here in another decade, once Sergio Marchionne and his crew are done with it. Although Jeep will survive under someone else’s ownership.
As for me, I’ve driven GM vehicles most of my lifetime. Cavaliers to Cadillacs. When I replace my Tahoe, I plan to get another. Ditto my wife’s Equinox. LOVE both of them. As I stated, I’m a self-confessed GM fan. I think they’re building the best vehicles today in their history…although I’ll be the first to say there’s always room for improvement.
I’m a fan. But I’m not blind. And I refuse to wear rose-colored glasses.
Chas108: Well said. As the owner [current and former] of 3 of GM’s Deadly Sins and one Ten Worst Automobiles Today winner, I can verify all the reasons you described for GM’s fall from grace and have never taken Paul’s series as being “bashing”. If anything, he’s an automotive historian.
And the readers who suggest he’s a “hater” haven’t read “On The Purpose And Nature Of GM’s Deadly Sins”, which should be required reading before commenting. It’s right there for everyone to see.
And in spite of my ability to pick the automotive winners, the cars have kept my interest, provided good service and I’ve enjoyed them all, actually. The infamy of their place in automotive history simply adds to their appeal for me.
One cannot tell the history of a company without exposing it’s problems and faults, unless one is writing a PR piece.
Thanks for your defense, guys, but it’s really not necessary. These trolls show up inevitably from time to time…and eventually disappear again. It’s not worth the energy to rebut them; “don’t feed the the trolls”.
“One cannot tell the history of a company without exposing it’s problems and faults, unless one is writing a PR piece.”
True! Even a fan (as opposed to fanboi),of an organization or company can point out flaws, even embarrassing ones and still be a fan. – I ought to know, being a Pittsburgh Pirates fan for 50 years ?.
It has nothing to do with Rose-Colored glasses. I ak well aware of WHY GM went bankrupt in 2008, and WHY they lost market share at an astronomical rate.
Let’s see:
Killing ANY car that could beat the Corvette
Dex-Cool
Rebadging Opel’s, for sale in the U.S.
Rebadging current GM NA marques, so all vehicles use the same parts.
The U.A.W.
NAFTA, and their 90% Mexican-assembled internal junk
Plastic Intake Manifolds
Plastic Intake Gaskets
Quad 4 Water Pumps
Eco-Tech Timing Chains
LS V8 oil control rings
amd the list goes on, and on.
My pointing out his known bias against GM, was very clear when he posted his article about the CC meet, up in Michigan, back in late February.
His Deadly Sin Series is INACCURATE, particularly because those articles only focus on the NEGATIVES and he will not even mention any of the positive effects. Speaking of, I am going to go warm up the engine, in my “Deadly Sin Saturn”, with no DTCs, almost 171,000 miles, a smooth-shifting automatic transmission, and its still working factory power sunroof……..
And as far as the K-cars? EVERY automotive magazine ever written during the 1980s and 1990s, as well as many mechanics, KNEW those engines were prone to cracked cylinder heads(2.2L/2.5L). The Turbo engines not only spun rods, they were notorious for blowing head gaskets. Add into the fact that the engines took a full 6 minutes for oil to begin flowing through the head, and wiped camshafts were quite common as well. Only after changing to roller cams, did that problem get corrected.
The 2.7L DOHC was GARBAGE. HUGE MONEY MAKER for my family. $1250-$1500 per used engine, thanks to the STUPID WATER PUMP DESIGN(Yes, Chrysler, let’s mimic GM by placing the water pump gears inside the timing cover…….GENIUS)…..
And it wasn’t the cat cons that caused the sludge issues. The 180°F thermostat, combined with the recommended 6-month/6,000-mile OCI with conventional was the issue, along with the restrictive oil galleys inside the cylinder head. My dad used to sell Chryslers, at a dealership.
See, the fact that those problems are often overlooked, when he rights any article about Chrysler products, are clear indicators of the bias being displayed in the article.
I could write volumes on all the different GM cars, I have owned. If I only point out the positives, then I am biased. If I tell you, that my 1993 Grand Am averaged 33-36mpg city/highway, with a 5-speed and no cat con, you might go buy one if you didn’t know anything else about the car. If I added how that little Quad 4 could outperform a V-6 Ford Mustang of the same year, you may go buy one.
But, if I tell you how a leaky water pump bearing resulted in a $3,500 repair bill, for a remanufactured Jasper engine with a redesigned Jasper water pump, and the labor to install it, you might think twice about buying that type of car. That is my point.
Saying that K-cars were “good” because they were cheap to produce and sold thousands may be true, but they were also cheaply made, broke down quite often, and are one of the many reasons that Chrysler began losing its own regained market share. The Neon/Cloud Car chassis junk of the late 1990s further accelerated this process(thanks to the 2.7L DOHC, that most mechanics would tell the owner to pay extra for a 3.2L/3.5L H.O engine swap).
Nevermind the fact that Chrysler has CONSISTENTLY ranked DEAD LAST or near DEAD LAST in RELIABILITY for the last 30 years, or anything.(Jeep is actually the worst-ranked brand, in the U.S., currently)
There is a cliché for what is being done: The “Half-Truth, and anything but….”
I have owned, tore apart, repaired, and sold parts from all of the Big 3, and many popular import brands, and many of those model have been produced between 1975-2008. I won’t touch anything, after 2008. Worked on a 2009 Cadillac SUV, once, and it taught me everything I needed to know about why I’ll never buy any new cars from any manufacturer. I will BUILD my own car, before I will buy the unserviceable scrap being produced off the lines, today.
Pound for Pound, it is generally easier to maintain, repair, and find parts for a GM, than any other brand(with Cadillac being quite the exception, due to the Northstar debacle amd their own worst reliability rating by Consumer Reports).
My father and a couple of his brothers worked for the General for 40 years and I grew up in a very large, primarily GM family. It’s comical now how loved by me and my family those GM cars were and how hated by everyone else here they’ve become. I’d take any of my mothers string of Grand Prixs back in a heartbeat. After my GMC truck and a relocation to Florida finding it unnecessary, I bought a Honda- and it was the worst car I’ve ever owned. I bought two Kias which were bulletproof, and then fell in love with an Astra. I thought that was the worst car I’d ever had reliability wise and followed my stepdad into Chrysler territory. Sang the praises of my Dart with glee until 50k miles when it literally began to disintegrate. I loathe it, and my brother loathes his. Parents have moved onto Ford (with a Taurus Limited AWD, but there’s still a Triumph, a 9-3 convertible, and a ’99 Firehawk for summer fun in seasonal storage) and I don’t know where I’ll go next. My friend just totaled a Kia (by an offset rear-ending my an Isuzu Trooper) with 160,000 miles and not a single issue so that’s looking like a good option.
They all suck.
I worked with a woman who was still driving a Mitsubishi Precis as her daily driver right up until she left the company three years ago.
It was an odd sight as I haven’t seen one in at least 10 years.