1988 Jeep Grand Wagoneer
UAV - Urban Assault Vehicle



The '88 Jeep Grand Wagoneer joined our family back in January of 2006. Here's how and why...

I've always been a motor head. As a kid, while riding with my parents, I could name every car that we met by year, make, and model. I bought my first car at the age 13 (a '64 Impala SS). I've been turning wrenches with my Dad for as long as I can remember. My favorite vehicles have always been the ones that everyone else considers "ugly". I believe that most people just lack vision when it comes to unique vehicles. My pride and joy in high school and college was an '81 Chevrolet El Camino. I bought it from my uncle for $350. It was a heap and it was ugly, but I loved it. I swapped the engine twice, swapped the transmission three times, built a custom interior, raced it a little, and drove it daily for the better part of 10 years. After letting it sit in the garage for a couple of years, due to loss of interest, I sold it for three times more than I bought it for. All in all, not a bad investment.

A few years after letting the El Camino go, I got the bug to tinker with a car again. I told my wife, "I went as long as I could stand without the frustration of working on an old car." I guess I'm just a glutton for punishment. By this time, I had gone through a back injury, and subsequent surgery, and was no longer comfortable climbing in and out of low slung cars. So, I thought an old truck would be the way to go.

My choice of old trucks was driven by several factors. First, the winter before, my dad and I drove a couple of hours south to try out a new pheasant hunting spot. Our guide asked me if we were in a truck. My answer was yes. Then, he asked if the truck had four wheel drive. My answer was no. He said that would drastically reduce our hunting field choices. I decided right then and there that this would never happen again. Whatever old truck we bought had to be a 4x4. Second, my wife and I just had a son, so a back seat was a must. And, I liked the idea of being able to take three or four adults on a bird hunt without needing two trucks to get out into the woods, so four doors would be nice too. Third, I wanted something old enough that I could work on it myself. That means, no complicated computer controlled ignition and no electronic fuel injection. What I really wanted was a late model 4x4 4 door SUV built with 1960's automotive simplicity, but nice enough to carry the whole family and capable enough to take us anywhere we wanted to go.

So, let's see: The Jeep Grand Wagoneer was based on the old Wagoneer platform that was originally designed in 1963 and remained fundunentally unchanged for 30 years. So, it's about as tried and true as you could ask for. And, the last model was built in the 90's with an all steel body, just like the first model back in the 60's. It has four doors, a nice interior, and all the bells and whistles. The Grand Wagoneer was a luxury SUV before the term luxury SUV was even invented! Best of all, nothing else on the road looks quite like a Grand Wagoneer. It has the same kind of "so ugly it's cool" style that drew me to the El Camino back in high school.

So, the search was on for a final edition series (roughly 1987-1991) Jeep Grand Wagoneer. The only problem was that there were only about five late model Grand Wagoneers sold in Central Illinois and three of those were wrecked back in the 90's. I wanted something inexpensive, but not junk I wanted something nice enough that I wouldn't have to rebuild all of the mechanicals to put it on the road. But, I didn't want something so nice that I would be worried about tearing it up. I found one extremely nice Grand Wagoneer for sale close to home, but the owner asking $6600! Too rich for my blood, and too pristine for my purposes. So, I had to look outside of our area. After a couple of months of online window shopping, I finally found a suitable specimen in Lebanon, MO (about 5 hours south). That's a long way to drive for a used vehicle, but it was exactly what I was looking for and the price was reasonable. So, I recruited my brother to haul me down to MO so I could drive the Grand Wagoneer home. Outside of the horrible broken original radio with blown speakers, the trip home was pretty uneventful.

Since the Grand Wagoneer's grand arrival about a year and a half ago, it has become my winter weather driver, our family camping rig, and my fair weather weekend driver. I even drive it to work once a week, whenever possible, to help keep miles off of my daily driver pickup. All of my coworkers have come to know Friday as Jeepday! The Jeep has proven itself to be comfortable on the highway, reliable in snowy winter weather, and capable off-road. It's not fast and the mileage is lousy, but it's done everything that I've asked of it. As you can see from my progress page, I've done a lot of preventative maintenance and made a lot of improvements to make the Jeep more reliable and more capable. God willing, I'll be driving and improving the Jeep for a long time to come. My wife still thinks it's ugly, but every once in a while, I can get her to admit that it is pretty cool.