Jeep Design Head Shares Key Insight into Future of Brand

By Marcus Amick - July 2, 2015

Last week, I joined more than 100 other auto journalists from around the world at the Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) annual What’s New program, an event showcasing all of the company’s brands, including Jeep. The get-together, held at the company’s Chelsea Proving Grounds in Michigan, not only gave us reporters a chance to get behind the wheel of most of FCA’s new products, but it also provided us with access to key officials with the company’s brands. In short, I learned a lot at What’s New, which is clear from the one-on-one interview I had with Mark Allen, head of Jeep design – especially if you read between the lines.

JK-Forum: Looking back on the past year, what’s the crux of Jeep’s overall strategy moving forward?

Allen: We’re not sitting still. We’ve got a lot of things to do because, all of a sudden, we’re worldwide. We’re going into markets that we weren’t even in before. And that presents its own challenges in just learning about the markets, the unique pieces of, say, China or India or Brazil and adapting. We’ve got to get smarter on this stuff pretty quick.

JK-Forum: What have been some of the biggest challenges for Jeep when it comes to the brand’s aggressive global expansion with new vehicles like the Renegade and Cherokee?

Allen: Just learning. For instance, in China, you can’t tow trailers but we’re working on vehicles that have trailer tow capacity. Small regulation items, like lighting, and just trying to keep up with all that. When we’re making a model, we try hard to make the model we sell in the markets we’re used to look the same worldwide rather than doing different lighting and bumpers. So, we’re trying to have more of a worldwide approach with the styling part. It’s just managing that rapid growth.

JK-Forum: When you talk about this idea of rapid growth, how do you address the concerns that Jeep might be getting away from its core DNA?

Allen: Honestly, it doesn’t keep me up at night, but I worry about that a lot – keeping whatever magic is true of Jeep and never losing that and having to work hard to regain that. That’s how the story would play out, right? As soon as you lose it, you’d want it back. We’ve seen car companies do that before.

Through our efforts in design, engineering, marketing, and planning, everybody is focused on not getting that wrong. We know the core is: Jeeps do great off-road. That’s where we started and to not lose that, we’ve had to do some adjustments for each model from the entry-level models up through the top end of our scale, the Rubicon Wrangler. Wrangler is the core of our brand. There’s a piece of that vehicle in everything we do. It doesn’t matter who’s talking in a meeting, they reference having whatever magic is in (the Wrangler) in every vehicle that we do. That’s key.

JK-Forum: Where exactly is Jeep with the Trackhawk? Is that now officially headed to production?

Allen: We don’t have an official decision on that. Obviously, the word is out that maybe we’re looking at something like that.

JK-Forum: Okay, well, can you discuss what a vehicle like the Trackhawk would add to the Jeep lineup?

Allen: I’ll tell you a story. I worked on both Grand Cherokee SRTs, the first one. And I remember walking into the very first meeting and we’re talking about that and I’m thinking, This is a bad idea. It’s got nothing to do with our core values of Jeep going off-road. But at the end of the day, it was like, Is that a cool car? Yeah. Is the world a better place for having one of those? Yeah. So, I think I was wrong with the first (SRT), and if we do something like a (Trackhawk), I’ll drive it. It’s really about if it makes sense.

JK-Forum: This year, there was a lot of buzz around the Moab Easter Jeep Safari concepts, much more than years past. Two that have sparked up a lot of discussions are the Africa concept that showcases Jeep’s potential to build a larger Wrangler and the Red Rock Responder (pictured above), which is an interesting take on a pickup. Are these teases for future Jeeps?

Allen: They’re ideas. They’re concepts, yes, but they are definitely functional. We’re opening our head up and letting you look in there publicly. That’s fun. It’s kind of unique. Wrangler is red hot right now and there are two variants. Is there room for more and to grow Wrangler into something a little bit bigger? It’s something we are seriously studying – to expand Wrangler.

JK-Forum: Speaking of buzz, there’s also been a lot of buzz around a new luxury Jeep Grand Wagoneer. I know you can’t discuss specific details about the SUV, but what does a vehicle like that add to the Jeep lineup?

Allen: We think there’s space to go higher than Grand Cherokee in our lineup.

JK-Forum: Ten years down the road, what will the Jeep nameplate and brand look like?

Allen: I know that my company will work very hard to do everything possible to protect the Wrangler as we know it. And that should be the case. That’s the icon of our brand. Other bodies and vehicle spaces will come and go, but the Wrangler will stay for many, many years. Because we know: you lose that and you lose everything.