Quote:
Originally Posted by WPOZZZ
1988 Jeep Grand Wagoneer. My first SUV and I loved the utility of it. 360 V8 had no guts, brakes totally sucked. But boy, it could carry a lot of stuff!
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I guess the reason I hadn't posted in this thread yet is because I've owned so many vehicles that I can't remember them all. I'm like a compulsive pet rescue person but with vehicles...always trying to save them from the junkyard.
But still, even after probably 100 cars and trucks, (many that I've forgotten), the one that really stands out was a Jeep Wagoneer from the late '70s or early '80s, before they started calling them "Grand Wagoneer." They had to do that because they stupidly decided to use the Wagoneer name on one of the smaller Cherokees and then reintroduced the big one but oops, we gave its name away. Who does that? A company built on schit-for-brains. The name Jeep only still exists due to the incredible, (I mean that literally), popularity of the CJ and Wrangler products.
Anyhow...it actually had a couple of good qualities, namely that it was unstoppable in deep snow and carried 4 or 5 people fairly comfortably. I remember the heat working well. So why was it such a POS? It got 7-8 mpg no matter how you drove it. For 7-8 mpg, I want a vehicle that performs like a modern Hellcat Durango. Something that does wheelies and melts the tires on command. Something that cops don't want to chase because it goes 200 mph uphill. This Wagoneer was slower than pig slop and seemed like it was built by auto workers on hunger strike who could barely lift their arms. Some of the parts were pre-rusted from the factory. The fasteners were bought in bulk from some country where they did not yet have running water.
It's amazing how much better vehicles got in subsequent years. Even unreliable ones that are on this list/thread drove ok when they were running and had decent power, for the most part. The late '70s was truly a dark time for domestic manufacturers.