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01:40
Welcome to the Total Car Score podcast,
01:43
bringing you the world of cars from inside the car.
01:47
And now your hosts, Carl Brower, Lauren Fix, and Javier Mota.
01:55
Well, here we are in New York.
01:58
Wellington, I think, what is the name of this place?
02:00
Domino Park here in New York with Ralph Giles,
02:03
a legendary designer, in charge of another,
02:07
I mean, several legends, like the Jeep Cherokee
02:10
or the Jeep Brown in general, well,
02:11
thank you for having us here, Ralph, first of all.
02:13
Thank you, great to be here.
02:16
I mean, we're here to talk about the 2026 Jeep Cherokee,
02:19
but I always say, especially in this kind of car,
02:22
that I have so much history.
02:23
I love when you bring the old ones,
02:25
because then you can see where you're coming from.
02:27
So you were in your presentation,
02:29
you were talking about some of the inspiration
02:32
that you took from that, from this one in 1974, right?
02:36
Actually, 84, the one my father had.
02:39
He bought a 1984 Cherokee.
02:41
The original Cherokee was 74.
02:42
XJ, yeah, the original was older than that.
02:44
So the second gen, let's say.
02:47
It was so different from what was out there,
02:49
and it was very capable.
02:50
We lived in Montreal, Canada, lots of snow.
02:52
So we really used it as a Jeep,
02:55
but also as a daily family vehicle,
02:57
and it was exactly that.
02:58
Yeah, and it seems to be like,
03:01
I don't know the perception
03:02
or like the way they set up.
03:03
Is that one bigger than the new one?
03:06
Like, it seems like it, right?
03:08
The original ones were a little bit bigger.
03:10
The generation through the 80s and 90s
03:13
was more compact, actually.
03:14
This has much more space than those did.
03:15
Even though it may look compact on the outside,
03:17
it's far more efficient.
03:19
Well, that's the genius of engineering
03:20
and designing together, right?
03:22
So tell us about what are the key features
03:26
designed-wise in any way?
03:28
Well, we tried to make something,
03:30
let's say authentic and essential,
03:32
less over-styled, you know,
03:33
just kind of something that could be handsome
03:36
in anybody's driveway, let's say.
03:37
So number one, had to look good.
03:40
Be a Jeep in terms of the capabilities,
03:42
the approach and departure angles.
03:43
Those are like where we start with Jeep,
03:45
ground clearance, all that stuff.
03:46
And then the personality of the Jeep.
03:49
So from 20 feet away, you know it's a Jeep.
03:51
We kind of harken back a little bit
03:53
to the XJZ lamps, but in a modern way.
03:56
So fusing some modern touches
03:58
with a very authentic, clean look.
04:00
But the biggest thing for me was fixing the cargo issue.
04:03
The last generation had a somewhat compromised cargo.
04:06
Overall, we kind of maybe favored styling over space.
04:09
This time around, we fixed it.
04:10
This is about four and a half inches longer
04:12
than the last generation.
04:13
Most of that going to cargo.
04:15
A little bit to the rear seat, but mostly the cargo.
04:17
We stood up the windows vertically
04:20
in all directions, actually, to improve visibility,
04:22
but also, and we lowered the belt line.
04:24
So overall, which is one of the things I loved
04:26
about the XJ generation is you felt
04:29
like you were an atrium when you were inside.
04:31
You could really add this connection with the outside.
04:33
And then we maybe downplayed the tech a little bit.
04:35
Didn't want the big tablet in your way,
04:37
nothing between you and the environment outside.
04:39
Yeah, some brands are overdoing.
04:42
I'm not going to say which one.
04:43
You need to do your temperature.
04:45
You need to play with your nav.
04:46
And that's about it.
04:47
The rest is settings, which you do very quickly.
04:49
So you don't need to, you know,
04:51
most people use their phones for everything else, right?
04:53
Yeah, and it's pretty amazing how far we've gone.
04:55
Obviously, this is 50 years old
04:57
and it's cool that you have an actual map,
04:59
a physical paper map to navigate.
05:03
So it checks a lot of boxes.
05:05
I think we did a lot of homework this time around
05:07
on what this consumer wants.
05:08
And it's really a vehicle that has to do everything.
05:10
And most people that buy this segment,
05:12
it's the only car they have.
05:13
They don't have two cars.
05:15
Because it does every purpose, right?
05:17
So we really had to check all the boxes,
05:18
the emotional boxes, the capability
05:21
that comes with the name, right?
05:22
And then the rest was functional needs.
05:26
What about the materials?
05:27
Because I think that's a very interesting story too.
05:29
And like maybe not a lot of people pay attention to that,
05:33
but it's really important for Jim,
05:34
as a brand and for...
05:35
Yeah, we did it for ourselves.
05:36
Most customers will buy this vehicle
05:38
and never know that we've put so much effort
05:40
into the sustainability story, and that's okay.
05:43
And the ones that care, they'll do their homework
05:44
and they'll figure it out.
05:45
We may tout it a little bit in our commercials,
05:47
but it's not important that it's...
05:49
We're not going to market the whole vehicle on that.
05:52
It's in our conscience, right?
05:53
And I owed it to my staff.
05:55
Our color materials team insisted on that,
05:57
put a lot of work behind it,
05:58
and they spent many years finding this material.
06:01
The problem is some of it
06:02
wouldn't pass our own testing.
06:03
So we had to really push our suppliers
06:05
to not give up, let's say.
06:06
So when we were able to find at least six or seven
06:09
different materials,
06:10
some of them most people don't even know is there.
06:12
You can't tell a difference.
06:13
No, that's the great thing about it.
06:15
It was long, and I could sleep a little bit better
06:17
at night knowing that we...
06:18
If this vehicle takes off
06:19
and sells in the volumes that we hope,
06:22
that's going to be a big impact
06:24
Yeah, absolutely, yeah.
06:25
Because this is a global vehicle,
06:27
obviously a Jeep has become in the past 20, 25...
06:30
This century, basically,
06:31
a true global brand.
06:34
I remember when it was Inter Milan,
06:36
Spongebob, not anymore,
06:38
but that helped us push a lot.
06:41
So this car will sell everywhere.
06:43
And it will set the tone.
06:44
This should be one of our highest-volume vehicles,
06:46
and that'll set the tone for the others.
06:48
And if we win here,
06:49
then we know that it'll be a positive influence
06:51
on the rest of our portfolio,
06:52
even outside of the Jeep brand and to other brands.
06:55
Another important thing,
06:56
I think that to talk about is the team that signed it.
06:59
You were talking about really young people,
07:02
and that's really interesting.
07:03
We had also a lot of influencers here,
07:06
like a lot of my old-school traditional media friends
07:10
but that's where the world we live in today.
07:12
So that's why you bring the mean tour, I guess.
07:14
Exactly, to look at it,
07:16
who may not know the Jeep brand,
07:17
may not have had ever had a Jeep, right?
07:18
Some of our people we speak to that are our ages
07:20
have had lots of Jeeps in our lives,
07:22
they know about the brand.
07:23
And that's why we have this setup here,
07:25
is to kind of educate them a little bit on the past,
07:28
almost 3 million of these things, right?
07:30
So a lot of them are still running around,
07:32
they're still in service today.
07:33
So there's this connection,
07:34
and I know this other thing about this generation,
07:36
they love authenticity,
07:38
they love some history.
07:40
They like to buy products that have
07:41
legend status in the way.
07:43
So we wanted to purposely connect ourselves to ourselves.
07:47
And I'm interested a little bit
07:49
because you guys do strategies as a whole,
07:51
there's a lot of things with a dash school,
07:53
for example, in Miami, that is,
07:55
and I always try to get you guys,
07:59
I mean like the important people in the industry,
08:02
to inspire people and this is a cool story
08:04
because you said like some of the team members
08:07
are 20, 20 years old,
08:08
I mean, there's an opportunity there,
08:11
so how can people get involved
08:13
or what can they do to get more into the industry?
08:15
Most all of my designers come from schools
08:18
where they had a student project
08:20
that was one of our brands in Jeep in particular.
08:24
And I get very inspired by that,
08:27
when I see someone put it in the extra effort
08:29
to do a project and if they win the competition,
08:31
let's say, I want to hire that person
08:32
because I know they have this passion in the brand
08:35
and a lot of them end up in our company
08:36
because they want to work for Jeep.
08:38
They could work a lot of places
08:39
and they choose to work there
08:41
and that passion does continue throughout their career
08:43
for the brand, so their family had a Jeep,
08:45
they personally love the brand
08:46
and they want to help us go to the next level.
08:49
So we've always empowered our younger designers
08:51
and I benefited from that when I was their age.
08:54
I was thrown into the deep end
08:55
of the design pool many times
08:57
and I want to give that same opportunity to...
09:00
Are there any particular ideas or details
09:03
that some of these young kids came up with you
09:05
and said, wow, like, we need to do that?
09:07
Even the headlamps and tail lamps came from...
09:09
We were going to do the U-shape thing
09:11
and it came from one of our designers
09:12
who loved the original headlights of the XJ
09:15
and said, how could we do it?
09:16
So it has that rectangular shape
09:18
but we don't need it to be rectangular anymore.
09:19
It's very small, the actual headlamps,
09:21
so the design helps remind of it,
09:23
but not literally, right?
09:24
So it's this fun kind of back and forth
09:26
between a little retro sprinkle
09:28
but with a very modern overall design, yes.
09:31
Well, it looks really cool,
09:33
but we have a blue one and a white one,
09:37
white, grayish, but you said you have more colors?
09:40
Oh yes, we are about to have some fun.
09:43
Lessons learned from Wrangler.
09:44
Langer is probably the most fun we have with colors.
09:47
We're bringing that game here.
09:48
We've had a long chat with our production team
09:51
and they're willing to play ball with us.
09:53
We're going to bring the heat with the colors.
09:56
Watch the spaces they say.
09:58
And you guys are busy because I heard in the presentation
10:01
also like four new models for Jeep in the next,
10:03
pretty much the end of the year, right?
10:05
Exactly, between now and even Christmas time.
10:08
Well, that'll be a nice Christmas gift for some people.
10:11
Thank you very much.
10:12
Jeep brand deserves it.
10:14
Thank you very much for your time, your work,
10:16
and for inspiring the next generation.
10:18
I think that's probably the most important job.
10:22
Thank you, my pleasure.
10:23
That's a wrap for this episode of the Total Car Score Podcast.
10:27
Want more expert takes on the hottest cars,
10:29
industry trends, and insider insights?
10:32
Join Javier Mota, Lauren Fix, and Carl Brower
10:35
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