When the Jeep Wrangler pickup comes out, expect it to fly out of showrooms, appear at your local OHV park, and cause a container ship’s worth of upgrades to hit the aftermarket. If the following Jeep Comanche commercial is any indication, you should also expect a lot of traffic delays because of it, especially close to railroad tracks.
The video starts off with a black Comanche traveling down a dusty country road during sunset. The cowboy-hat-wearing driver comes to the top of a rise in the pavement with the Jeep truck’s headlights and fog lamps blazing. He continues into the night, a full moon illuminating his solo journey deeper into the countryside.
The Comanche driver’s progress is halted by the flashing lights of a railroad crossing. As the train is about to roar past him, the engineer gets an eyeful of the MJ and throws the brake. He and his co-workers climb out of the locomotive, lanterns in hand, to get a closer look at the truck. They approach it slowly, as if coming upon an alien spacecraft.
It might have been different in shape and carrying abilities than its corporate cousins, but the Comanche was hardly foreign to Jeep in its time. The automaker produced it for several years, from the mid-1980s until the early 1990s. From the cab forward (and underneath), its resemblance to the Cherokee was strong. Jeep also manufactured full-size J-series pickups at the same time Comanches were rolling off of assembly lines.
Perhaps Jeep should produce a new version of this commercial when the Wrangler pickup comes out. That will truly be an automotive alien to a generation that was born after the Comanche was phased out in the days of the (Papa) Bush administration. Let’s just hope none of the people from it work on a train…
Derek Shiekhi's father raised him on cars. As a boy, Derek accompanied his dad as he bought classics such as post-WWII GM trucks and early Ford Mustang convertibles.
After loving cars for years and getting a bachelor's degree in Business Management, Derek decided to get an associate degree in journalism. His networking put him in contact with the editor of the Austin-American Statesman newspaper, who hired him to write freelance about automotive culture and events in Austin, Texas in 2013. One particular story led to him getting a certificate for learning the foundations of road racing.
While watching TV with his parents one fateful evening, he saw a commercial that changed his life. In it, Jeep touted the Wrangler as the Texas Auto Writers Association's "SUV of Texas." Derek knew he had to join the organization if he was going to advance as an automotive writer. He joined the Texas Auto Writers Association (TAWA) in 2014 and was fortunate to meet several nice people who connected him to the representatives of several automakers and the people who could give him access to press vehicles (the first one he ever got the keys to was a Lexus LX 570). He's now a regular at TAWA's two main events: the Texas Auto Roundup in the spring and the Texas Truck Rodeo in the fall.
Over the past several years, Derek has learned how to drive off-road in various four-wheel-drive SUVs (he even camped out for two nights in a Land Rover), and driven around various tracks in hot hatches, muscle cars, and exotics. Several of his pieces, including his article about the 2015 Ford F-150 being crowned TAWA's 2014 "Truck of Texas" and his review of the Alfa Romeo 4C Spider, have won awards in TAWA's annual Excellence in Craft Competition. Last year, his JK Forum profile of Wagonmaster, a business that restores Jeep Wagoneers, won prizes in TAWA’s signature writing contest and its pickup- and SUV-focused Texas Truck Invitational.
