The French say that cuisine is the art of repurposing leftovers. It’s also about making the best out of what you have. Take a tough old rooster, simmer it for ages in the cheapest plonk you can find with whatever vegetables you can scrounge and you get coq au vin. This philosophy, applied to the automotive field, gave us the Cherokee.
AMC were top chefs – no wonder they tied the knot with Renault. Take a rustic Toledo-made Willys Jeep, dress it in a brand new Brooks Stevens-designed body, chuck in some direly needed creature comforts and let simmer until Kaiser decides to sell out. By that point, in 1970, the Wagoneer’s kinks all ironed out thanks to seven years in production, AMC got to work squeezing every atom of flavour out of the Jeep brand in general and of the big SUV in particular.
The original Wagoneer was available as a two-door, but the four-door had edged it out of the range by 1968. So AMC just reintroduced the two-door in 1974 with a slightly modified side window à la Chevy Blazer and dubbed it Cherokee. Always give your “new” dish a new name, that’s another secret: replace the old bird in your coq au vin with otherwise inedible chunks of geriatric cow and voilà, it’s bœuf bourguignon.
They also put a great big 6.6 litre V8 in there as a performance option, just to give their “new” Jeep variant a bit of extra zing. But you could still get the old 6-cyl. and a manual box if you really wanted to punish yourself for succumbing to temptation.
And so AMC kept the pot boiling for years and years, with minor adjustments here and there. The grille and headlamps are an egregious example. It’s as if because the sealed beam law was changed in 1976 that everybody just had to get the square-eyed look. It was the hip new ingredient, like chia seeds or Himalayan salt. It didn’t agree with the rest of the dish too well, but fashion dictates what it dictates.
Same for the plastic grille. The original Stevens upright grille and the mid-life AMC-era horizontal chrome nose (which to me bears an uncanny resemblance to the GAZ-24 Volga, though that’s not necessarily a bad thing) both have their dedicated followers, but the ultimate incarnation of the big Jeeps were a bit bastardized.
Perhaps with a design that lasts this long, this is an inevitable hazard. Certainly, the same thing ultimately happened to the aforementioned Volga too. Only a handful of designs lasted through to their third decade and still looked ok. I’d put the VW Beetle, the BMC Mini and the Citroën 2CV in this category – small cars are perhaps more amenable to staying evergreen. In the AWD world, the Land Rover might also qualify, but I’ve always wondered if that one had really ever been “styled” in the proper sense. The original Jeep wagon really takes the cake: made by Mitsubishi (in slightly modified form) until 1983, it looked just as cool in the end as when Willys launched it in 1946.
That being said, the original Cherokee is iconic – much more so than the K5 Blazer for my taste, even if this particular one is slightly less glorious than the early model version. A good stew gets better as you re-heat it, at least initially. Then, it can start to smell a bit strange and finally become downright indigestible. Just ask AMC.
Related posts:
CC Capsule: 1979 Jeep Cherokee – No Offensive Badges But Complete With Bow And Arrows (Updated), by PN
CC Capsule: 1979 Jeep Cherokee – I Love Bacon, by PN
Cars Of A Lifetime: 1979 Jeep Cherokee – So Proud To Live, by Junkharvetser
I do recall around 76 feeling that round headlamps were old-fashioned, so it’s no wonder that Jeep sought to switch to square headlamps. It was such a big deal that everyone knew you had a new car because of the square headlamps – even non-car people.
I guess a similar thing today is HID or now LED headlamps vs. old halogens. From far away people would know (if your lights were on of course) that you had a new or nearly new car. Also people would know if you bought some crappy aftermarket bulbs too!
It must be something driving that Jeep around Japan!
I hated the round lights on American cars of old. I always thought that their European and even Japanese counterparts looked more “futuristic” because of their square and in some cases, glass headlights.
It depends on the design it’s applied to. Most big American cars designed in the early 70s transitioned to square lamps very well, as they were housing their round sealed beams in squares already.
Older designs like the Wagoneer / Cherokee looked weird with square eyes. This is not unique to American designs – the Volga mentioned in the post, but also the Isuzu Florian or the Argentinian Ford Falcon, for instance, ended up looking very strange for the same reason.
The LED running light strips are what I’d draw a parallel to in recent times, I still remember it like yesterday, Audi had it, and a year or two later every car had it! Some look silly and ridiculous, but they did have the same effect of making anything made prior or without them dated overnight.
Metallic gray just isn’t that Blazer’s color, and the plain black steelies aren’t helping.
Beige seems to work on the Jeep – it’s hardly bolder but it’s in-period, along with the Cherokee Chief-style black trim around the windows to try and bring the old ’62 design into the ’80s, and you can’t go wrong with white wagon wheels on a truck from this era.
The original Stevens upright grille and the mid-life AMC-era horizontal chrome nose (which to me bears an uncanny resemblance to the GAZ-24 Volga, though that’s not necessarily a bad thing) both have their dedicated followers, but the ultimate incarnation of the big Jeeps were a bit bastardized
Actually, it was the other way around. Steven’s initial design for the new Wagoneer included a grille that was essentially identical to the horizontal one that the Wagoneer finally got in 1966. It was the conservative management at Willys that insisted on the traditional vertical grille, but within a few years they got over it:
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/design/design-capsule-1959-willys-malibu-and-1961-j-100-the-first-two-tries-at-styling-the-1963-jeep-wagoneer/
A Detroit 353 would look and sound real nice under the hood of this old girl. Maybe a six speed behind it.
This looks like a tasty old rooster! I like the simplicity of the package, everything about it colour included. In pic 5 I can see the tyre logos face to the inside of the vehicle, I wonder what that’s about?
Some people did not like the look of the Raised White Letter (RWL) tires and would mount them on the inside. It’s still a common question here.
“RWL on the inside or out?” Sometimes it’s done because two different brands are on the vehicle and people want to minimize the difference.
It used to be the same situation when white sidewalls were common.
This black plastic grille was pretty obscure in the vast variety of faces the SJ wore, and definitely the weakest, I’m not smitten by any of the square light variants though.
I actually don’ t mind the rectangular headlights – they don’t look bad on that square-cornered design. Not loving the black plastic grille, though – I had forgotten about that one.
Though I don’t remember noticing it at the time, did the commentariat here once decide that the front doors on the 2 door Cherokee were the same as on the 4 door Wagoneer? If so, this may be the only vehicle that ever pulled that trick off because it looks “right” in either version.
They are the same. I think a few extra inches would have been better, but I’ve seen worse. 🙂
True about square headlights on a square-cornered vehicle.They’d look pretty awful on, say, a 1967 International pickup.
I like these, rectangular headlights and all. But I’d never heard them referred to as SJ’s; in fact they are often called FSJ’s (full size Jeeps) but I suppose SJ is the model designator like CJ, XJ, YJ (aka Yuppie Jeep) etc. I know I can always learn something new here on CC.
The headlight thing is ponderable.
The Renault R10 was advertised with the slogan, “Look who’s got square eyes from watching the road” – doubtless a short-lived career for whoever thought of that stultifying number – and compared to the (short-nose) round-lit R8, I’ve always thought the R10 had one of the most offensive faces ever put on a car, like a suitcase and two TV’s protruding from an R8. Yet the R16 looks correct in squares and US version vaguely comical in its multiple roundies. Conversely, or not, the gigantor ’72 GM’s all looked great with rounded peepers, and either angry or drugged with the variations of The Square they later got. Once Chryco (I think?) starting piling The Squares high – ie: stacked – I could no longer look, which is how it looked too.
And yet, and yet. The US Citroen SM always looked a bit off without the perspex front, but those round lights instead of the Cibie Squares? It looked as if it had lain in the desert and had the crows pluck out its eyeballs. (Perhaps that’s what in fact what did happen on the US shakedown, it wasn’t a robust device, but I digress). The Maserati Bi-turbo similarly if differently looked like a sweet 3-series BMW that had got cheap and ill-fitting eyeglasses, though that was as delivered from the factory in Europe. Doubtless there’s heaps more examples.
For my part, the Old Square (as it now must be) was only occasionally good. Mostly, however, it just looked like an over-ambitious driving light, as it does on the Cherokee here: as if, like some noxious office greasy-pole climber, it has elbowed and politicked its way from the front bumper to the leading light position, but now has no idea what it’s doing there.
What drives me nuts about the squares was the utter lack of restraint car designers had to immediately affix them to every car in their lineups, just like in 1958 when quads emerged. It took a while for designers to realize “hey, we can actually design a car upmarket with the old one headlight per side and maintain contemporary attractiveness too, you know”, but that virtue quickly left once squares were released. Some cars took to them well(usually accompanied by an all new facia like 77 firebirds or 76 Cutlasses), but other cars, especially of the stacked variety, clearly had them hastily jammed into round footprints.
Agreed, on the R10 thing. That front fascia was hideous.
The ultimate satire for the square lights, I suppose, was the Wagon Queen Family Truckster, from the 1983 movie “National Lampoon’s Family Vacation.”
It wasn’t that far off from the truth.
Depends I guess on where the R10 was purchased…my Dad bought a new R10 in the US and it had round headlights, but outboard of the headlights there was kind of a dual clear/yellow lens that ended up as a triangle at the side of the car. The yellow light was the front turn signal, not sure what the white light was (got my license the year he traded it in). The car had another set of lights on the side that were clearly meant for the home market (including a combination red/clear lens) that were also on the US version. Kind of like the side mount turn signals on my 2000 Golf (which they’ve eliminated on subsequent versions…they put them on mirrors and such but no longer on the fender).
My Mother still thinks of the R10 as the least stylish of cars that my Dad owned, but not for the front visage you describe…to her the car looked the same going frontwards as backwards (in other words it was too symmetrical, looked like you could turn around and drive it from the back seat). To me the front looked cute, with the bumper raised up in the middle for accessing the spare tire. And the added length of the hood was undoubtedly done to increase the (front) luggage space, though they may have overdone it (but if you want to really see it overdone look to the VW 412). I mostly recall my Dad keeping a battery charger in the hood (6V) I guess because he didn’t drive the car except back and forth to work, the battery got flat periodically. It also looked a bit odd with 3 lugnuts.
But as Paul pointed out in his previous article, it had 4 wheel disk brakes (and came with Michelin radials, a first for the cars my Dad owned), so maybe function was to trump appearance. Renault is undoubtedly know for some questionably styled cars, so it fits right in. And it was 4 door (vs my Dad’s previous Beetle even though it had the questionable sliding rear windows.
Plus the seats were great (but I guess that’s true of other French cars). Too bad we don’t have the option of buying them here (I guess the Nissan Versa is kind of a disguised Renault in a way, and we can buy them in NA).
Say what you will about the square headlights of the late ‘70s. At least they were made of glass so they were immune to cataracts!
There was a Kaiser-Jeep panel truck version of the Gladiator as well, and I believe it had the same body as these Cherokee’s and the 2dr. Wagoneer without the side widows and back seat. The panels were very rare
You could argue (indeed I have) that the Series 2 Land Rover was styled, to look better, more modern and more substantial than the Series 1. Key detail is probably the shoulder line along the wings and under the window, as well as proper doors.
It’s a look that endured – look at the later 90, 110 and Defender, and the new Defender.
An old Cherokee had the honor of being the most rusted out vehicle I had ever ridden in until I was almost 40. My friend’s dad had one of the first ones made, and it had giant rust holes in every body panel by the time it was 5 years old. They used it to tow their boat with, and every year, with the boat, it came out of their garage with a fair amount of rust left on the garage floor. The boat always looked about the same, but the Jeep just looked worse and worse. At the end, the driver’s side mirror fell off, there was nothing to really keep it on, and then the roof began to leak and the Jeep went to the scrapyard, driven there under it’s own power, but without working brake or taillights. It was only 11 years pld. The only thing I’ve ever seen that rusted faster than it did was the neighbor’s 1985 Toyota Pickup’s bed. He and his son got a load of treated lumber and built a wooden bed for it that outlived the cab of the truck.