Junkyard Find: 1983 Jeep Cherokee
Published: December 14th, 2015
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Because we still see them all over the roads today, the still-in-production ( in China) XJ Cherokee is the best-known Jeep Cherokee. However, AMC made a two-door version of the original SJ Wagoneer, called it the Cherokee, and built it for the 1974 through 1983 model years (just to confuse things, a four-door SJ Cherokee was added to the mix a few years into production).We saw an XJ Cherokee Junkyard Find a couple of weeks ago, and here’s a final-year-of-production SJ from the same Denver self-service yard.
You wouldn’t be wise to drive this big ol’ four-wheel-drive truck, with its primitive early-1960s suspension and 170-horse engine, at speeds exceeding 85 mph, but these Malaise Era 85 mph speedometers still irritate me when I see them. 154,887 miles on this truck, with its unusual-for-the-era six-digit odometer.
This truck has some nice custom fighting (or kissing) eagles etched on the side glass.
If you like an interior with every possible shade of brown, this is your truck.
There’s no serious body rot, but this CB antenna mount didn’t do the finish any favors.
Let’s try to imagine this truck when it was shiny and new… and about to be replaced by a much smaller and more modern successor.
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The claim of 20 highway mpg in the ’80 Cherokee seems, well, optimistic. Still the “We wrote the book on four-wheel-drive” line is a winner.
Murilee Martin is the pen name of Phil Greden, a writer who has lived in Minnesota, California, Georgia and (now) Colorado. He has toiled at copywriting, technical writing, junkmail writing, fiction writing and now automotive writing. He has owned many terrible vehicles and some good ones. He spends a great deal of time in self-service junkyards. These days, he writes for publications including Autoweek, Autoblog, Hagerty, The Truth About Cars and Capital One.
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It looks so pathetic in the top picture. It's like someone knocked its friggin glasses loose.
I had one of these as my first car. A 1978 in 1998, it was still shiny. Made me very popular around school but that's also where someone hit it and it was totaled. After that I got a Dodge Shadow and was never cool again. With "texas" tires it was worthless in the snow or mud. It had no low range but did have a center locker of sorts. They were cobbled together; AMC engine, Ford carb, GM TH350, Dana axles, and so on. It'd do 75, more probably, but at those speeds you could actually watch the fuel gauge drop down. If you put at least 12 kids in one the inside front wheel will chirp during turns.