Q&A with Mark Allen, Head of Jeep Design

Q: Will there be any surprises from Jeep to mark the 70^th Anniversary of Jeep?

A: We did the 70^th Anniversary package for all the Jeeps … we had a 70^th Anniversary Wrangler in Moab. I hadn’t seen the interior until I got to Moab — we’ve only had mockups over here (in Detriot). The interior is based off of a Sahara Plus kind of a thing, we had bunch of leather-wrapped stuff. (The theme) is more parade or dress military, not camo, gun-slinging military.

Q: A lot of the Jeeps have a logo with “Since 1941” on them, will there be any blow-out edition?

A: No. Other than that, we showed the Mojave out there. That kind of closes out any surprises from Wrangler at the moment.

Q: It seems like the Wrangler is built function first, and form second …

A: As it should be.

Q: Right. Are there any challenges when you’re designing Wrangler? Because you’re dealing with such an iconic Jeep?

A: I talk about this all the time. I treat Jeep — because I love Jeep — in two different ways: For all of the other vehicles, we were working very hard behind the scenes to move them much more modern, much more sculpted in their sheet metal and their appearance — best described with what we did with the Grand Cherokee — is moving away from simple folded sheet metal and hard creases and stuff like that. To muscles and modernity.

But for the Wrangler, I’m the caretaker. So I need to look after it and I tell people this all the time that the next Wrangler, if I’m doing my job right will look just like this Wrangler. Remember in ’87 they put square headlights on the (Wrangler)? Really? That was the biggest change they’ve ever made and it was hated. We got a ton of hate mail for that one. Because it’s never gone out of production — I guess the Mustang too, has never gone out of production … but it’s kind of left its roots — I don’t want to do that with the Wrangler. I want it to be the one that soldiers on. The (Porsche) 911 is a very similar story. They can never leave that iconic shape and we vow not to leave that on the Wrangler as well. It’s function driven. A guy will take a Wrangler, take the fenders off and stretch the wheelbase and cut it, but it still looks like a Wrangler.

Q: You made a good point in that you can smooth the edges of a lot of Jeeps, but do you think that it’s inhibiting to make SUVs that have to perform certain off-roading tasks?

A: Purely function driven.

Q: Is that throughout the brand?

A: Again. Wrangler is a different animal. It has to be the best-of-the-best when it comes to off-roading. It has to have a steeper approach and departure angle than a Grand Cherokee or Patriot or Compass. The duty for the (Wrangler) is to get you out farther than any of the other vehicles and back. We have this graph that shows a mountain side, and say a Compass or a Patriot gets you this far up the mountain. Or a Liberty gets your farther up a mountain, but at the top is a Wrangler. That gets you all the way up the mountain and there and back.

If that’s your needs then that’s your vehicle.

Q: Where do you draw your design inspiration from?

A: It comes from everywhere. For say a Grand Cherokee. It goes up to, and tops out at mid-$40s. I have to be proud enough of that vehicle that I can park it next to my German luxury sedan without any shame. It can’t be cartoony. It’s a higher-tech vehicle. Not that I couldn’t park my Wrangler next to it, but it’s a just a higher-end bracket.

Q: It has to be more black tie?

A: Exactly. We take the great pride in that. But the newest vehicle we have — the Grand Cherokee — has design elements on it that carry back to our very first vehicle. Think about that for a minute.

Who else does that? When I talk about the design elements, I mean specifically the 7-slot grille, trapezoidal wheel arch a lot of people don’t understand but that comes right off of the flat-fender Willys from 1941. They just simply bent a piece of sheet metal — that car was never in a design studio …

Q: … or a wind tunnel?

A: I have this great picture of a horse with a cannon on it — like a Howitzer. But that’s how desperate they were. They needed a cannon in the woods so they strapped it to a horse. They probably killed the horse with that thing. So they came up with the Jeep.

If you’ve ever read the story about Bantam and Willys and Jeep, it’s an interesting story.

The point is, we’re pulling design elements from the first Jeep and putting it on to my $44,000 Grand Cherokee.

There’s nothing from the Model T on the latest Ford Taurus. I can say that philosophy can steer you wrong. You can end up with things like the Porsche Panamera. But the 911 wasn’t their first car.

It’s unique that we can still salute the past of our first vehicle. We’re very proud of the roots of Jeeps.

Again, style-wise, I think it’s really cool.

Q: You’ve been with Chrysler since 1994 right?

A: Yep, 1994.

Q: In a moment of honesty, what are some of the more important Jeeps that have come along? And then what are some that you’d want to take back if you could?

A: I don’t know if I want to give us any more black eyes. I believe that the latest and greatest Grand Cherokee. We’ve gotten such good feedback from that vehicle. It may not look like the riskiest thing to do but when we had it at the shop here, it was such a departure from what we had done with Grand Cherokee that just that little bit of change — not little bit — but putting all that muscle and the sexy body sight on that vehicle caused some concern in here. That kind of upset me really.

But I’m very proud of that vehicle. It has a great presence on the road. Grand Cherokee has evolved in a very short period of time from 1993 to now but we’ll say Grand Cherokee now still has some of the design elements that go all the way back to the 1963 Wagoneer. You’ll see it in the lamp shape in the back, the D-pillar in the rear, grille treatment — where the headlamp kind of invades into the grille — what’s really a CJ-5 kind of a thing. These are subtle things that no one needs to care about or even know about, but we do.

And it’s just small pieces of brand heritage …