herberd877: Report: Rumored Jeep pickup far from a done deal

Friday, December 24, 2010

Report: Rumored Jeep pickup far from a done deal

Filed under: Truck, Jeep, Rumormill, Off-Road

2005 Jeep Gladiator Concept - Click above for high-res image gallery

Please join us in a collective sigh of exasperation. According to Automotive News, the much-rumored Jeep pickup that had us all salivating earlier this year may be little more than hyped-up vaporware. It would seem that while Chrysler's off-roading arm is game to create a small pickup once again, the vehicle isn't as writ in stone as we were all led to believe. From what we can tell, Jeep is facing some grief from the Ram squad for wanting to play in their sandbox. Additionally, all of Chrysler is staring at a pretty hefty dearth of engineers, so adding another ground-up build to the company's already sizable honey-do list isn't exactly on the table.

And what of the military-spec Jeep truck currently on sale elsewhere around the globe? Automotive News says that Chrysler thinks it wouldn't be worth the effort (or money) to try to dilute that vehicle down far enough for civilian duty. Maestro, cue up the sad trombone, if you'd be so kind.

That means that we can probably scrap the notion of seeing Jeep pickup by next year as we were initially led to believe. If the vehicle does manage to get past all of the hurdles before it, the pickup likely won't see the light of day for a good long while.

Gallery: 2005 Jeep Gladiator Concept