Posted by Mark Williams | October 8, 2014

With all the attention Ram has been getting lately due to its impressive U.S. sales, the success of its light-duty half-ton turbo-diesel and its best-in-class torque numbers from the Ram heavy-duty Cummins, it's easy to see how Ram might get the lion's share of attention from Sergio Marchionne, CEO of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles. But Jeep, another FCA brand that also has been growing at impressive rates in the U.S. and around the world, has been keeping Marchionne busy. That's certainly been the case at this year's Paris Motor Show.

According to Automotive News, Marchionne recently announced in Paris that the next-generation Wrangler could be made from aluminum, use a turbocharged engine and might shed its rugged ladder frame construction in favor of a unibody chassis. Marchionne said doing so means shifting production from Toledo, Ohio, where the Wrangler is currently built. That announcement was a bit of a shock to folks in Toledo because in January, during the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, Marchionne said the Wrangler would always be built in Toledo.

As you might expect, this has the Toledo plant leadership wondering what to think, but there might be a silver lining in the form of the long-awaited, longer-wheelbase Jeep pickup truck. If production of the next Wrangler moves to a more modern, more flexible and larger plant in Illinois or Michigan, the Toledo plant could still produce other vehicles with a traditional ladder frame (maybe just a little longer and beefier than the Wrangler Unlimited frame) that could be a solid platform for a Wrangler pickup (Gladiator?) that would likely be different from any midsize pickup Ram could offer.

As difficult as it might be for some Jeep enthusiasts to believe their beloved Wrangler could go to independent front and rear suspensions and convert to a unibody chassis, they might at least find comfort in knowing that the hard-core Jeep tradition would be carried on with the return of a ladder frame Jeep pickup (which didn't exist with the Comanche from 30 years ago).

No matter what happens, it looks like Jeep is ready to go global with the new 2015 Renegade as well as introduce the possible return of a Jeep pickup produced at the Toledo plant as soon as announcements are made about when and where the next Wrangler will be produced — it's likely due in 2017. That puts the Jeep pickup timing somewhere around 2019 by our guess, just three short model years away.

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