Could The Fiat Toro Freedom Spotted in Detroit Be the Next Jeep Pickup?
Recently, Automobile Magazine spotted a strange sight bombing around the streets of Detroit; a Fiat Toro Freedom. While you’ll often see camouflaged or interesting cars in the Motor City, it’s rare to see a pickup truck driving around that’s never been sold here. Is this spotting worth reading anything into?
No. Auburn Hills is a global center for FCA. It’s quite common for manufacturers to perform vehicle testing there. It’d be the same as testing an only-sold-in-America vehicle in Norway. But a Twitter follower of mine, @dcengland86, made an interesting point about that truck. That truck is the “Freedom” trim level.
For those of us with longer memories, in 1990 Jeep introduced a concept vehicle called the Jeep Freedom. It was basically a Cherokee with the roof lobbed off, but it did offer pickup truck functionality with a Jeep badge. We all know a Jeep pickup truck is coming, so the coincidence comes at a particularly interesting time.
Additionally, the Jeep Freedom concept used a small SUV platform for the conversion. The Fiat Toro is built atop the Renegade platform, but that front end does look a heck of a lot like the front end of the Jeep Cherokee that’s sold in the United States.
If we remove our tinfoil hats for a second, we know the new Jeep pickup truck will share a platform with the next Wrangler. So the odds of the Toro being THE Jeep pickup you’re waiting for is slim to none. However, small SUVs and crossovers are growing in sales, and a small unibody truck like the Fiat Toro Freedom (or the Jeep Comanche concept, also, coincidentally built on the Renegade platform) might make a good Jeep-badged truck offering in the midsize marketplace.
We shall wait and see.
Chime in with your thoughts on the forum. >>
lead image via [YouTube]
jeep freedom concept via [Jeep / Facebook]
