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Last Jeep Wrangler JK to roll off Toledo assembly line
The Toledo Assembly Complex will build its last Jeep Wrangler JK on Friday, ending a 12-year production run for what became the most successful version yet of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles’ best known nameplate.
Though Jeep launched an all-new and much improved Wrangler in January, production of the outgoing model chugged along for an additional four months — a somewhat unusual arrangement that was meant to ensure dealers had plenty of the hot-selling sport utility vehicles on their lots.
With that goal met, FCA will now dive headlong into preparations to launch the first ever Wrangler pickup truck.
“We’re making changes to the plant now to accommodate the vehicle,” Sergio Marchionne, the chief executive officer of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles said on a Thursday conference call.
Speaking to investors and financial analysts, Mr. Marchionne said the Toledo Assembly Complex should begin building the pickup truck before the end of the year, though full-scale production won’t be reached until early in 2019.
The yet-to-be-named truck is expected to go on sale in the first half of next year.
The end of production for the old Wrangler — known inside the company and by Jeep enthusiasts as the JK — will mean temporary layoffs for about 850 FCA employees at the Toledo plant as well as another 900 employees who work at a pair of on-site suppliers.
Officials with Fiat Chrysler haven’t yet said when the company will begin bringing those workers back, though a filing with the state of Ohio said the layoffs are expected to last at least six months.
Combined sales of the new and outgoing Wrangler have been exceptional this year, with Fiat Chrysler selling a record 27,829 models in March alone, crushing the previous monthly sales record by more than 5,000 units. Year to date, Wrangler sales are up 34 percent.
Fiat Chrysler hasn’t broken down how many of those sales were the new JL model, and Mr. Marchionne declined to get into specifics on Thursday’s call.
Even so, he confirmed that average transaction prices on the new Wrangler are higher than the outgoing model — though profits have been stable.
“The new vehicles does have additional cost,” Mr. Marchionne said. “The vehicle is a lot better than the old one simply because of the fact that it is structurally a very different vehicle. We’ve been able to maintain and preserve margins notwithstanding the transition to a higher price level.”
Including destination fees, a base two-door V-6 Sport model of the new Wrangler JL starts at $28,940, an increase of $3,500 over a comparably equipped Wrangler JK.
