I like coming upon any Wagoneer in the wild, but the older the better. So I was pretty stoked to find this one which, judging by the grille, was from as early as the late 60s.
Oooh, look, it’s wearing an old license plate, presumably in Indiana’s Antique Year of Manufacture program. But wait, what? What does that plate say?
1983? Nuh uh! That was firmly into AMC’s square-headlight years. Either someone stuck a much earlier grille on this Wagoneer – or they are using the wrong year license plate.
Let me take a sidebar to explain something else significant about this plate and its original owner: s/he was a Republican, and probably a prominent one. The plate number tells the story. Indiana plates all used to begin with the number of the county of issue. That was followed by a single letter (in later years, in populous counties, sometimes two), and finished with a number of up to four digits.
80 is the number of Tipton County, a county of farms and small towns about 30 miles north of Indianapolis. In lightly populated counties like Tipton, well-connected Republicans and Democrats could arrange to have “R” or “D,” as appropriate, be their letter. Very well-connected party members could finagle a low-number plate. The lower your number, the higher up you were in the party. Back in the day, this plate’s owner was a Tipton County Republican not to be trifled with.
But back to this Wagoneer, badged a Brougham. That identifies it to 1981-83, the three years this package was offered. It added some luxury touches to this rugged utility vehicle: woodgrain interior trim, carpeting, and a power tailgate window. That woodgrain-insert rub strip is also unique to the Brougham. It was one step down from the top-of-the-line Wagoneer Limited, which added even more luxury.
I feel sure this owner simply swapped an earlier grille onto this Wagoneer. I’ll bet any Wagoneer grille swaps right into the mounts; the original 1963 front-end stamping lurks beneath any Wagoneer’s front brightwork. It might not be the only bodywork done on this SJ – do I detect mismatched paint on the rear quarters? But however it got to be this way, it’s great to see this old Wagoneer still doing its job.
Related reading:
- Brendan Saur tells the Wagoneer story.
- Paul Niedermeyer uses Wagoneer ads to explain America’s love of the SUV.
love the look of these. this one looks nice even in beige. secretly i’ve always been a fan of the razor style over the gladiator front end, somehow it seems more balanced.
the lesson on indiana license plates was marvelous. only in indiana would anyone care to put their party affiliation front and center for all to see. or perhaps there are other states as well?
The thing that always seemed odd about Indiana plates was how they seem to be unable to pick a base plate design AND STICK WITH IT for more than a few years.
California’s base plate has evolved only slightly since 1963 with only a color change or other slight tweak once a decade or so, Vermont’s used the same base plate since 1985, but it seems like every time I see an Indiana plate it’s an entirely different style.
Back when California was issuing black plates, Indiana issued a new plate every year. Ours stays with the owner instead of the car.
It was probably in the 70s or early 80s that a plate would be used for 3 or 4 years with just a new expiration sticker on it. And every new plate design turns into some kind of amateur artists festival. I have sometimes wondered if stupid ugly designs are chosen on purpose to encourage the take rate on specialty plates that cost more.
There were a few years when it looked like every Indiana plate was from Wander county. Where’s that?
” only in Indiana would anyone care to put their party affiliation front and center for all to see. or perhaps there are other states as well?”
Back in the day, I don’t recall seeing any Colorado plates with a party affiliation, but if you won a seat at the state house, you could get special plates for you car (State representative plate shown, State senator plates were available as well).
New Mexico state reps/senators get RED plates with yellow lettering and their district number listed. When I moved to Gallup in 2002 the most common one I would see was on a well kept end of production Cadillac Brougham. Now they are commonly seen on something like a Yukon Denali.
NY state also issues special plates for their state legislators, and its widely viewed as a way for them to get out of any traffic infraction. Because what cop would ticket a state rep?
Indiana has legislator plates too. There are plates marked “State Representative” or “State Senator”. Each has a number, but I do not know if those numbers relate to their district.
Massachusetts also has special plates for state legislators.
Here In New Zealand all government car plates commence with ‘CR’, which stands for ‘crown’. Not the Toyota type, but as in The Crown. Both the governing party(s) and the opposition use crown cars, so there’s no way of knowing which party the car’s occupant is from – with the exception of plate CR1, which is for the Prime Minister’s car. Similarly, most diplomatic vehicle plates commence with ‘DC’.
Wagoneers from the late ’70s onward were so much nicer than earlier versions as AMC moved them upscale with nicer interiors and lots of luxury power options. Make mine a Limited model with all the goodies.
Make sure you can live with single digit gas milage before you splurge on one of these. Probably worse with propane.
I think the grille is from a late-’70s Cherokee
You may be right!
I remember those plates. Single digits were for bigshots.
I worked for awhile right out of high school at a large funeral home. Each license plate in the fleet was the number for the county, a letter, and then two digits – which was the number that everyone used to identify the vehicle. So when the boss said “Take 71 to the car wash” everyone knew he meant the 77 LeSabre sedan with the dog-slow V6. I was told that the owners made significant political contributions to keep those low numbers.
Man that thing is stunning!
Isn’t popular in the Jeep community to put the older grille on the newer cars? I swear I saw this was a trend somewhere (on the internet…).
I would never park something that pristine anywhere near a cart return at a big box store. I have a feeling I’d come out to find that some slob let their cart roll into the side of my truck…
Am I the only one who finds “Jeep” and “Brougham” a jarring mix?
Virginia has a few special license plates for political VIPs, the most unusual being that governors provide their friends (i.e., big donors) with plates that have the governor’s initials followed by one or two numbers. For example the current governor’s initials are R.N., so he issues plates such as RN-15. Like this Indiana example, it’s a subtle way for well-connected people to advertise their party affiliation, and I’m sure it’s popular among the political elites.
I’ve never seen one on a car as interesting as this Jeep, though.
Here’s a Wagoneer I spotted last year. I’m guessing mid 1970s. Not nearly as nice as that one.
There seem to have been a lot more pics coming through upside down lately.
One of the contributors once mentioned that it’s likely the plugin for posting images here not handling exif data correctly (specifically the orientation information). So if a photo was taken with a phone turned sideways, like this one was, it shows up upside down because it doesn’t know how to rotate it back to the right orientation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exif
That person recommended resizing the image before uploading, as that will often reorient the pixels themselves. So I actually did that this time, using Window’s image resizer app. Apparently that app doesn’t do that.
Click through and the full-size version of the picture is always the right way up.
What a beautiful car….every bit as timeless and iconic as the Range Rover…or even more so.
Never knew thought that “Brougham” was around in the 60s. Always thought it was a 70s fad.
Grille swapping on FSJ’s to get the owners preferred style is definitely a common thing, and its a pretty simple thing to do. This rig is incredibly clean, even the beige paintjob sits pretty nice. Id be swapping on some deep dish slot mags in a hot second, but other than that, sweet Waggy.
Quite a handsome truck. But the prices for these things have gotten ridiculous.
I remember prior to 1970 here in Maryland everyone received two new plates (front and back) every year, with colors continually changing. Now you keep plates indefinitely, with yearly stickers. There are new designs every 10 years or so, but you can keep your old plates forever. They stay with the owner and can be transferred every time you buy a new car.
What, then, is the story of the front plate? Two differing plates seems mighty odd (but so does number-plate fiddling because of political connections to this outsider!).
The State of Indiana has never (at least not during my lifetime) required a front license plate. Many cars look naked without a front plate so dealer plates and custom vanity plates are common for the front. For years my cars wore one that had my initials on it.