Prototype still wears heavy camo
It’s been more than two years since we heard from Jeep’s Mike Manley that a Wrangler-based pickup truck was going into production. About six months later, one of our spy photographers caught the first prototype out testing in the wild. In the time that’s passed since then, you’d think the Wrangler pickup would be close to production-ready. Based on the prototype shown here, that’s not the case.
Noted spy photographer and Motor Trend editor-in-chief Ed Loh took these shots earlier this week on Pacific Coast Highway in Manhattan Beach—just a couple miles southwest of MT headquarters. Unfortunately, despite PCH’s infamous slow-moving traffic, he wasn’t able to crawl under the prototype and check for a Ram-inspired suspension. Aside from the fact that this one was testing in California, not Detroit, there also isn’t much to see here that we haven’t already seen in previous spy shots.
Does the heavy camouflage mean Jeep’s behind on developing the Wrangler pickup? It’s possible. But it could just as easily be an attempt to keep the final design from being spoiled ahead of its official reveal. We already know what the JL Wrangler looks like, so it isn’t hard to imagine what it would look like as a truck. Odds are these renderings are pretty accurate even if a few details may end up being different.
The good news is we probably won’t have to wait another two years to see the production Wrangler pickup, most likely called the Scrambler. Last we heard, it’s scheduled to go on sale a year from now. If that’s true, the official reveal will probably take place by the end of the year.