Junkyard Gem: 1975 Jeep Wagoneer

The Wagoneer name came back to life recently, nearly three decades after being used for about ten minutes on a trim-level designation for a woodie-fied first-year Grand Cherokee, but the vehicle we’re supposed to think of when we see the word Wagoneer is the original SJ version, which was designed by the legendary Brooks Stevens and built from the 1963 through 1991 model years. We saw a 1966 SJ Wagoneer in this series last year, and now here’s a 1975 SJ in the very same Denver-area car graveyard.

The original Wagoneer was built by Kaiser Jeep through 1970, after which the American Motors Corporation bought the company and continued Wagoneer production. When the revolutionary XJ Cherokee appeared for the 1984 model year, the Wagoneer name was used for that truck’s top trim level, while the original SJ Wagoneer became the Grand Wagoneer. When Chrysler bought AMC in 1987 (mostly because Lee Iacocca saw the value in the Jeep brand), Grand Wagoneers kept coming off the assembly line for another four years (despite being an antiquated early-1960s design), because they just kept selling.

The original Jeep Cherokee was just a two-door SJ Wagoneer, which first hit streets as a 1974 model. Just to confuse everybody, someone swapped an SJ Cherokee fender (or maybe just the fender badges) onto this truck.

The build tag tells us that this truck was built at Toledo Assembly in Ohio, and that its original engine was an AMC 360-cubic-inch (5.8-liter) V8. Just to make life hell for parts-counter workers for decades after Chrysler bought AMC, this engine is completely unrelated to Chrysler’s 360-cubic-inch V8.

There’s still an AMC V8 with two-barrel carburetor in here, so it may well be the original plant. If so, it was rated at 175 horsepower and 285 pound-feet.

Do you find modern automotive HVAC controls to be excessively complicated? If so, you’ll love the ones in this truck.

The radio, which looks like a dealer-installed unit, picked up both AM and FM!

This truck would be considered hilariously primitive by 2024 SUV standards (or even early-1990s standards) and fuel economy was terrible for the gas-line era, but it was sturdy and simple.

It’s battered, faded and a bit rusty, but still seems a bit too nice to have ended up here.

Here’s what happens when time-traveling Korean War soldiers encounter the ’76 Jeep line in the California desert.