The horizontal grille of the very last 1991 Grand Wagoneer luxury sport-utility vehicle hid some of the same sheetmetal stampings that supported the basic and utilitarian upright grille on the very first 1963 Wagoneer. That’s long led to a belief that the Wagoneer remained relatively unchanged from its Brooks Stevens origins, but over those 28 years the Wagoneer saw far more than just cosmetic changes. It moved upmarket quickly, it weathered multiple parent companies, it adapted to fuel crises, and it wore a number of different nameplates, culminating in the Grand Wagoneer name it was best known for in the latter quarter of its existence – a name that will soon be resurrected on an ultra-premium hybrid mountain of an SUV from Jeep’s current globe-spanning parent corporation. Not bad for a four-wheel-drive rig from Toledo.
