As I am preparing to dive into another house rehab on Monday I took some time on Friday to head up to Laramie and attend to a few needs one of my rentals up there had. On my way back out of town, I came across this little slice of Jeep history that is being offered for sale and figured I’d share.
When Jeep introduced the new Gladiator this year, they repeatedly mentioned it was Jeep’s first pickup since the last one 26 years ago. I didn’t quite get the math since the Comanche ended in 1992 (27 years ago, no?) with a barely-there sales total of 952 for that year. This example is from the year prior to that, which wasn’t an outstanding sales year either with a production total of 5,188. The high-water mark was 1986 with just under 44,000 produced but any way you slice it, the Comanche was not a resounding success for Jeep
Even though this one is almost 30 years old, I was a little preplexed by the rust, since cars up here in Wyoming aren’t that susceptible to it. Until I got around to the back, whereupon I noticed it still had the dealer tag on it showing it was sold at Executive Motors in Evansville, Indiana at one time. Rust question solved. Executive Motors appears to be “permanently closed” according to Google, so at least this truck outlasted its dealer from a time previous in its life.
So anyway, while this Comanche wears its Jeep letters proudly on its tailgate (punctuated with a rusty bullet point on the wrong side), this Jeep is a Pioneer trim level, one up from the Base and one down from the Laredo.
For 1991, this should be equipped with the “High Output” version of the 4.0 inline-6 that is fairly legendary among Jeepers for its high torque and excellent longevity. This one is backed by a 4-speed automatic and is also a 4×4 model with a manually shifted transfer case. I have no idea what that piece of plastic on the ground is and hope it isn’t from our candidate here.
That bed is seven feet of glory and while a six-foot bed was also available, curiously Jeep never saw fit to add a real extended cab option to the longer wheelbase with the shorter bed, which may have been one of the reasons for its relative lack of demand. Price shouldn’t have been the factor as this truck was in fact the lowest priced way to get into a Jeep which isn’t something the new Gladiator can boast.
But perhaps it was more pricey than its competition, although this was marketed as a “mid-size”, just like the Dodge Dakota but nobody else at the time. I’m a little concerned about what rust the bedliner may be hiding but judging by the small lake at the front, at least the liner seems watertight.
Inside we have a cab with the bare necessities, and a steering wheel that looks just like the one in my in-laws’ old 1991 Cherokee Laredo, and if so it’s in fact a very comfortable wheel to grasp and use. Other than that, it’s pretty much a sea of fairly durable plastics and not-so-stain-resistant seats.
I think the rear wheels stem from a Grand Cherokee at least a few years newer than this truck and the front wheels seem to be from a late 90’s Non-Grand Cherokee. At least it’s Jeep stuff I suppose.
The front is probably the best angle for this particular one as there isn’t any visible rust here, but that add-on tubular bumper, while protective, isn’t doing it any favors visually. Still, at this age and out here often it’s more a matter of what works and fits than what is “correct”. It’s most likely not going to be entering any car show contests anyway.
So if you are dying to join the Jeep club and the visible rust doesn’t scare you off, then this low mileage (142,000) example of Jeep’s last attempt at a pickup may be just the ticket. At $3,200 I’m torn as to whether it’s a decent value or not but guess there is at least some wiggle room in there. Trucks (and anything branded “Jeep” aren’t getting any cheaper, and a V6 with a good 4×4 pedigree as well as a decently sized bed might come in handy. As of Friday, this was available, it likely still is now.
Jeep. There’s Only One….for sale in this particular spot on this particular day. Hey, look, the tags are expired, make a low-ball offer!
Is the Comanche the last US-market pickup that wasn’t available with any sort of extended cab?
Well, there was the SSR.
I would definitely be interested if I had a few bucks. I have no use for the new Jeep truck (?) with its shallow 5 foot bed. I know its a 7 foot bed, but it would be good for scavenging fire wood and all the home projects I have. My Ranger doesn’t do well in the snow up here.
I live in Evansville, Indiana and vaguely remember Executive Motors as one of the numerous used car lots that populate (or used to populate) the area. Back in the day there were probably 10-12 of these lots that sort of congregated in an area that could charitably be described as working class. There are fewer now than before but some of them are still around, the ideal location to shop for a beater.
If this Jeep spent much of its life in this area before migrating west there is a good chance that there is plenty o’ rust on the frame and suspension parts. People around here complained (and rightly so) for years about the highway and street departments doing nothing about snow removal except hoping for warmer weather. Now they have gone whole hog in the other direction and start pre-treating roads at the first hint of snow or ice in the forecast. A cynical person might say that the most important thing they are protecting this way is their budgets, but who am I to judge.
The best way to prevent ice and snow from bonding to pavement is to prevent the bond in the first place, thus pre-treatment. And these people at the various highway departments have the same forecasts as everyone else, so they make the best judgement they can.
For what it’s worth, a lot of highway departments have one budget that covers both snow removal in the winter and pavement in the summer. Plus, that same budget also has to cover various natural disasters such as floods and tornados. So extra money used for materials in the winter is that much less to go on the road in the summer. Odds are, they swung toward pretreatment due to people bitching about slick roads, only to be rewarded for them to bitch again about using material. Viewing this prevention as a way of protecting their budget is a rather unfortunate way to think about it. 🙂
In Maine they pre-treated like mad for many years, but last winter hardly at all.
Oh, I know, people are seldom/never satisfied with the services their tax dollars provide:-) Now that I’m retired and don’t have to leave the house if the weather is bad I would just as soon they let the snow melt on its own rather than helping it along chemically. I did have a different point of view when I was working.
You confirmed my suspicion that any place named “Executive Motors” would be the last place a real live executive would look for a car. This is one of my personal “kisses of death” in used car shopping – anything with a sticker from a 2nd or 3rd tier used car lot on the back.
I of course understand regular new car dealer advertising signage on the back of a car – so that you will know/retain the name of the local whatever dealership but I don’t quite get it when it comes to used cars, what’s the point of anyone seeing that the car was sold as a used car at abc used motors in xyz, Indiana? It’s not like anyone will ever remember that if they are in the market for a used car unless it’s some giant outfit like CarMax.
The plastic piece is a fender liner. Wouldn’t mind owning this truck at all, though the rust would probably scare me off. Maybe the liner was removed to check for corrosion. Nice find.
I was issued a “well worn into the saddle” Comanche for a TDY federal government vehicle in the summer/fall/winter of 1997. It had the in line 6 cylinder engine, 4 speed manual transmission, 4 wheel drive, forest green color. I enjoyed it for 5 months when in Tampa, FL, helping to keep the area safe from the Mediterranean Fruit Fly (“MedFly”) epidemic. Nobody else wanted it because of the manual tranny. Their loss!
If one knew how to “row the gears” it was quite entertaining and darn peppy! Esp when compared to all the full sized, slant 6 Dodge trucks the other guys had. I found the bucket seats much more comfortable than the flat bench seat in the Dodges.
I tried to find it again the next summer, when sent to Tampa again, but it had disappeared.
If I brought it back to Indiana it would dissolve into a pile of rust after the first snow. It needs that Wyoming climate to survive now. The Wagoneer I got from outside Cody once upon a time had managed to get spots of rust living it’s whole life there.
(a) as you pointed out, the lack of an extended cab was dumb, dumb, dumb. Everybody else had one, and I’d venture extended-cabs made up at least 30% of sales (maybe more) in the other manufacturers’ compact truck lines.
(2) When Chrysler bought AMC/Jeep, they didn’t want to build a truck that competed with their own Dakota. (Two trucks named after Native American tribes!)
(III) Cherokees were FAR more profitable, and in higher demand, than Comanches and ate up production capacity at the shared plant. Every Comanche they made meant one fewer Cherokee they could sell
Excellent find Jim. Thirty-three years after their introduction, these are still great looking trucks.
Here’s Motorweek’s test of an ’86. The engine in the test truck was the biggest available at the time, the 2.8L Chevrolet V-6, offering 115hp and 150lb⋅ft of torque.
I always thought the unit body Cherokee would make a good ute and having seen a couple that were cut down into one I’m not alone, Jeep left the idea out of its range, I guess the new Gladiator will find its way down here eventually though we are already spoiled for choice in the 4WD ute market segment, Ford has captured most of that market with its diesel Ranger but theres room for another player I guess.
For some reason, I’ve been seeing quite a few of these lately.
I’ve been intrigued by these recently. I did a CL search a few weeks ago and though the few on offer had less rust, they also had significantly higher price tags, at least asking. When I was in the market for a replacement for my Datsun 720 in late summer of ‘86, I test drove a Comanche but found the cramped cab challenging, after 3 years with my extended cab (“King Cab”) Datsun, and thought the GM 2.8 V6 was a dog compared to the 2.9 in the Ranger, and not much better than my Datusn’s 2.4 four banger. Of course, a few months later after reading the enthusiastic reviews of the new-for-1987 4.0 straight six, I may have made a different decision if I had waited a bit. And though the Jeep’s interior was otherwise an improvement over the Datsun, it wasn’t as nice as the Ranger, which I ended up buying in SuperCab form.
That’s a nice, honest survivor of a Comanche. I remember when they were introduced in the mid-80s, I was quite enamored. Until I priced them. IIRC they were approximately $9k around here; I know that’s a “give or take”, but I thought they were ridiculously priced for what they offered. A long bed such as this is what I’d have been looking at. I know it’s considered a “mid-size”, but honestly, at 7 feet it didn’t offer any more utility than a compact long bed. At least the Dakota offered a full 8 feet; but neither it nor the Jeep had a full width bed (48” wide between the fender wells), critical for hauling palletized materials; might as well just buy a compact for a couple grand less. In addition, the Comanche interior was cramped, in fact more so than some compact trucks; somehow the Dakota didn’t feel so. Perhaps actual statistics would bear me out as wrong, it was just my perception.
They’re asking $3200 for this? While Jim is right about trucks, and especially anything branded Jeep, as not getting any cheaper; it sounds like the seller is hoping for $3000, and probably has his bottom at $2500. If it runs good, I’d lowball him at $1000, maybe $1200…$1500 if it has cold air; and I’d walk after $2000. Heck, it is a 4×4, maybe I’d do $2500. It’d better have cold air. Maybe. It’s a beater, and the bedliner looks too good not to be hiding something. And last, but not least, it’s an AMC…as in: A-M-C-K-E-Y-you know the rest.
I had a ’96 Dakota, last of the box version. Having driven this and comparing it to Cherokees I’ve driven, the Dakota has a much higher seating position, whereas Commanches and Cherokees seem to sit you much closer to the floor. I think this is what gave the greater feeling of space.
Great find! I still see one of these now and then… usually in rather good condition such as this one.
Although odd, I always sort of liked the unusual B-pillar “vent” treatment that was a result of using the Cherokee front greenhouse.
A neighbor of mine has one that he appears to be working on. So they seem a little more common to me as I pass it every time I drive out the road.
Out on the Interwebz you can find all sorts of crew cab builds using the rear doors of a Cherokee, but so far it doesn’t seem like anyone’s tried to tackle the project of custom-fabbing an extended cab.
The MJ Comanche still has quite the cult following, although they’re becoming increasingly difficult to find. Fascinating piece of engineering to start with the unibody XJ Cherokee and design a pickup with rear frame rails and a traditional pickup box for the MJ. That structural design deserves an article all to itself…
What’s the big deal?
Ever looked under a Cherokee? It has “frame rails”, except that they’re welded/ integral to the floor pan. In the Comanche, those rails are just longer and extend out back, like typical BOF frame rails. And the bed is bolted to that. Not really very complicated at all.
If you look under just about any unibody truck, like all the millions of Chevy, Econolines, or Dodge vans, you’ll see beefy frame rails too, but jut welded to the floor. In the cutaways, they’re not, or in some cases (Dodge) part of the floor is left intact.
Unibodies originally were just bodies and frames welded together, or formed as a single piece. Most modern passenger cars don’t have very visible “frame rails” anymore, but the do have extrusions at the sills and the center tunnel both gives them the strength that frame rails would in a BOF car.
Had a base model ’92 short box with the 4.0 & manual. Pretty straight and rust free. About 60k miles on the clock when I bought it used in 2000 to pull boat & haul garbage. At the time, we had a summer place on the river where it sat unused in the garage 9 months at a time.
When a son started flight training at LA Tech, he needed a vehicle to drive from campus to the airfield. I offered the Comanche. His response was, “You don’t expect me to drive that old thing do you?” One of those parenting moments when you want to strangle your own 18 year old flesh and blood.
With as much calm as I could maintain, I replied, “I suppose not. Your bicycle will be much more economical.” Realizing the Comanche was the only offer he’d get, my son apologized and accepted, albeit without any real enthusiasm.
At the end of his 4 year college program, he was headed for the Army. I no longer needed the truck since I had replaced it with a an ex-government Dodge V10.
Tech is in Ruston LA, a small town college with plenty of students from rural areas. I told him to sell it and send me the money. A bit to my surprise, he got $3500. That was near what I had paid for it 12 years earlier. He even thanked me for the 4 year “loan” and said the truck turned out to be quite popular among the fellow students he hung around with.
I knew the ’92 was the last year for the Comanche when I bought it. Since I had just wanted any pickup when I bought it, I never realized how rare it was until reading this article. It was a very good truck all the years I had it. I wouldn’t be surprised if it is still on the road.
Price is a bit high, but would make a great farm truck. Can’t get any dirtier than this. 🤠🤠🤠
I’d consider a Comanche for the right price since I’m looking for a truck, however practicalities push me towards something with more cab space so a full size or an extended cab are more likely. Also an Oregon truck so I don’t have to worry about rust