Brent Snavely

Detroit Free Press

In a sweeping announcement Sunday afternoon, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles created excitement among Jeep enthusiasts and its workers in the region when it revealed plans for a $1-billion investment in its Warren and Toledo plants so it can make a Jeep pickup and bring back the storied Wagoneer nameplate.

FCA said the plant investments would be completed by 2020 and create 2,000 jobs, as long as it can reach agreements on tax incentives with Michigan and Ohio officials. The announcement came seemingly out of the blue as automotive media was attending news conferences at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit.

The Auburn Hills automaker also threw out the possibility of assembling heavy-duty pickups in Warren that are currently only made in Mexico. The plan could potentially head off tweets from President-elect Donald Trump, who has been critical of Ford, General Motors and Toyota for expanding automotive production south of the Border.

But a worker at Warren Truck, who declined to be named, told the Free Press there have been rumors about the possibility of assembling heavy-duty pickups for more than a year.

Still, automakers are likely on a collision course with Trump this year over free-trade issues and some companies appear to be making moves to appease the incoming president. Ford canceled plans last week to invest $1.6 billion for a new assembly plant in San Luis Potosí, Mexico.

FCA characterized its investment as the second phase of a plan to shift the assembly locations of a number of vehicles built at plants in the U.S., Canada and Mexico. Details about FCA's massive plant reshuffling plan began to emerge in 2015, ahead of contract talks with the UAW.

“These moves, which have been under discussion with Dennis Williams and the rest of the UAW leadership for some time, expand our capacity in these key segments, enabling us to meet growing demand here in the U.S., but more importantly to increase exports of our mid-size and larger vehicles to international markets," FCA CEO Sergio Marchionne said in a news release.

UAW President Dennis Williams welcomed the investment, saying it demonstrates FCA's commitment to the U.S.

"These investments will benefit UAW members their families and communities by providing greater job security," Williams said.

Marchionne is scheduled to speak Monday at 10:15 a.m. at a previously scheduled news conference at the auto show inside Cobo Center.

FCA has been working to expand its Ram brand globally and might need more heavy-duty pickups if successful. Last spring, FCA named Bob Hegbloom, who had been in charge of Ram, to a newly created position as head of Ram International.

If sales of Ram heavy-duty pickups increase, the automaker could then make those trucks at Saltillo Truck Assembly in Mexico and in Warren. The Saltillo plant, which opened in 2005, employs 3,600 workers and assembles the Ram 1500 regular cab along with heavy-duty Ram pickups.

The investment announced Sunday is on top of a $1-billion investment announced last year to expand production of the Jeep Wrangler in Toledo and to move the Jeep Cherokee to its plant in Belvidere, Ill., where it will replace the Jeep Compass and Jeep Patriot. FCA is building its next-generation Jeep Compass at its plant in Toluca, Mexico.

Marchionne also confirmed plans last spring to move assembly of the Ram 1500 from Warren Truck to Sterling Heights Assembly but plans for the Warren plant were unclear until Sunday.

More:

What you need to know about FCA's Jeep investment plan

Jeep gets a pickup truck and here's how it could look

The automaker will build the Wagoneer and Grand Wagoneer SUVs at its plant in Warren and will build the Jeep pickup at the south plant of the Toledo Assembly Complex. It did not release any details about the vehicles or photos.

The Wagoneer was the first of a series of full-size Jeeps introduced by Willys, according to JubilieJeeps.org. From 1963 through 1983, The Wagoneer nameplate was used on the full-size wagons.

The new Wagoneer and Grand Wagoneer will likely be rugged, body-on-frame SUVs that will seat seven or eight people. Marchionne also has said the Wagoneer will be Jeep's premium nameplate, capable of competing against rival global SUV manufacturer Land Rover.

"The Wagoneer name represents, historically, the pinnacle of premium for the Jeep world," Marchionne said last year. "But in the same way as you may have an Overland and a Summit, you have different trim levels. So you could imagine the use of Wagoneer to denote a really premium vehicle, and Grand Wagoneer takes it to the very next level. If you were to use that as your naming strategy, that's exactly how I would use the trims."

Jeep enthusiasts have been clamoring for years for the automaker to make a pickup version of a Wrangler.

What would a Wrangler pickup look like? That's unclear at this point, but the automaker has shown a variety of interesting concepts over the years, such as the Wrangler Red Rock Responder shown in March and the Jeep Gladiator it showed in 2005.

"I am a huge fan of a pickup truck in the Jeep brand. Not just because of the history — it has been part of our history over the years — but also because it is one of the top subjects of topics that we have for discussion with our customers," Mike Manley, head of FCA's Jeep brand, has said.

Contact Brent Snavely: 313-222-6512 or bsnavely@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @BrentSnavely.