QOTD: Whose Lunch Will the Jeep Wrangler Pickup Be Eating?

Time to eat my words. Two years ago, I said the real reason there’s no Jeep pickup is this: A Jeep and a pickup are the same thing. I was wrong. The JL Wrangler Pickup is apparently a sure thing, although I’ll believe the existence of a two-door version when I see it in showrooms.

Let’s assume for a moment that Jeep will start by selling a four-door Wrangler with a 6.5 foot bed, pretty much like all the mules that have been spotted running around. Where will the volume for this vehicle originate? And how much of that volume will there be?

• 50 percent Wrangler owners and intenders who would have purchased a four-door Unlimited if the “Scrambler” had not been available.
• 25 percent Boomer-aged pickup-truck owners looking to downsize without shame.
• 15 percent Colorado Z71/Raptor/RAM Rebel intenders who want something for the oft-delayed day when they finally make it out to the dunes.
• 10 percent Zoolander glampers who are currently driving Outbacks.

I should explain the “Zoolander glampers” category. There’s a certain kind of Millennial who exists primarily to babble on social media about all the SUPER OUTDOORSY STUFF he’s doing with the money he got from his trust-fund/tech-job/revenue-saved-by-screwing-his-best-friend-out-of-health-benefits-to-score-points-with-his-website-angel-investor.

These guys love having drum circles in National Parks, carrying four different overcomplicated knives on their person at all times, and rubbing their knuckles on sidewalks so it looks like they’ve been in street fights. The ur-example of the type is a guy on the Internet who calls himself “InexplicablyMild” or something like that and who is basically Derek Zoolander with some carefully cultivated stubble, right up to the self-conscious “Blue Steel” look in every photo. Anyway, these people have managed to make a conspicuous consumption exercise out of all the activities everybody’s farmer uncle did on the weekends by himself, like hunting and hiking. The Subaru Outback used to be standard equipment for these berks but I suspect that a lot of them will move to the Wrangler pickup. It can hold two sweet mountain bikes and a wakeboard!

All of the above is subject to an uncomfortable conflict with reality. The JL Scrambler could end up cannibalizing 250,000 RAM 1500 sales every year. Hard to say. I’m not going to say anything definite. Fool me twice… won’t get fooled again!

[Image: Off-Road.com]