Rare Rides Icons: The Jeep Wagoneer, The First Luxury SUV Ever (Part VII) (opens in new tab)

After their purchase of Jeep in 1970, American Motors began diversification of the newly acquired brand’s product line. The company saw the potential in Jeep for a much broader offering of passenger utility vehicles: Utility wagons, recreational utility vehicles, and trucks. The former two would gradually converge together in nomenclature to be called SUVs, a term Jeep created in 1974 when it marketed the new Cherokee (an SJ Wagoneer derivative). Part of the product diversification…