Junkyard Gem: 1987 Jeep Wagoneer Limited
The first Jeep Wagoneer appeared on American streets all the way back in 1963, years before American Motors gobbled up the Kaiser Jeep Corporation, and it remained a big, body-on-frame truck all the way through 1983. For 1984, the old SJ-platform Wagoneer became the Grand Wagoneer and the Wagoneer name became the top trim level for the brand-new unibody Jeep Cherokee. Here’s one of those Cherokee-based Wagoneers, a snazzy faux-wood-siding-equipped ’87 Limited found in a Denver-area boneyard recently.
This was the most expensive member of the XJ Cherokee family you could buy new in 1987, with an MSRP of $20,503 (or about $54,605 in inflation-adjusted 2022 dollars). The very cheapest Cherokee that year, with two doors and two driven wheels, started at just $10,949 (around $29,160 today).
The Wagoneer Limited had a luxurious interior by 1987 truck standards, though we’d consider it intolerably cramped and noisy today.
Buyers of early Cherokees and Wagoneers often wanted manual transmission in their trucks, which seems hard to believe now. A four-speed automatic was base equipment on the 1987 Wagoneer, so the original purchaser of this one went out of their way to get the three-pedal rig.
As you can see by the angle of the engine’s dangle here, some junkyard shopper bought the transmission (and gearshift) before I arrived. It should have been the Peugeot-sourced five-speed, but there may have been a way to get the good old four-on-the-floor in this truck. XJ experts, please advise.
That engine is the metric-designated version of the early-1960s-vintage American Motors straight-six engine, which you may remember from such golden 1970s hits as the Pacer and Gremlin. The 4.0 proved to be the most beloved of all AMC engines, long-term, and stayed in production all the way through 2006 (when it powered Wranglers).
This one was rated at 173 horsepower when new.
Chrysler bought AMC in the spring of 1987 (mostly to get the valuable Jeep brand, with secondary motivation being to acquire all the expensive Renault engineering that went into the Eagle Premier). As such, this truck still shows AMC branding on the regulatory labels. It was a “49-state” high-altitude truck, so it’s likely it was originally sold in Colorado (or maybe Wyoming or Utah).
Looks like it did some traveling around the Centennial State during its life.
The final mileage figure was just a bit over 200,000 miles, which is good for a 1980s American Motors product.
Features such as power windows and air conditioning were still considered somewhat frivolous by many truck buyers in 1987, but that attitude would change soon enough.
Leaner, meaner, thoroughly luxurious.
