Jeep wants to build a new kind of patriot

Jeep is more than two years into an ambitious, but carefully laid, plan to reinvigorate the brand in Australia.

With a comprehensive strategy, the iconic brand says it has the potential to fill some of the void left by departed Australian manufacturers.

Revised messaging, refreshed vehicle line-up and a rallied dealer network are all starting to turn the tide on six years of sliding sales, but the company says it can do more to make the seven-slot grille a more patriotic symbol for an Australian audience.

Speaking to Whichcar, Jeep's Senior Vice President for the India and Asia Pacific region, Billy Hayes, said the company saw parallels between the Jeep brand and departed home-grown vehicles from Ford and Holden, and it now has the potential to offer something that’s been missing ever since.

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“The Jeep brand should be as close to what a domestic brand should be in Australia,” he said. “If there was a brand that was made here and people would be proud of, it would be Jeep.

“It’s an opportunity for us to occupy some of the space that some of the other brands were.”

Australia’s demand for rugged go-anywhere SUVs at the larger end of the spectrum would certainly suggest Jeep has greater potential than its current 0.6 per cent market share, as Hayes went on to explain.

“Jeep matches so well with Australia. You have very high standards, you’re outdoors people, adventurous. It’s a perfect match.”

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Over the coming months and years, the company will continue to roll-out its strategy to capture a greater chunk of Australia’s hearts and minds, which started almost three years' ago with a top-to-bottom revision of local operations, as well as tailored promotional activity and a revised product range.

More recently though, the appearance of development prototypes on local roads has not only allowed Jeep to produce better vehicles for Australia and all global regions, but a range that has a little bit of Australia in their fabric.

The all-new Grand Cherokee and its stretched L sibling are the latest models to arrive following local testing, where the Northern Territory’s corrugated roads provided conditions the Jeep engineers had never previously encountered.

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Before that, the current-gen Compass cut its teeth Down Under, along with the JL Wrangler and its Gladiator ute cousin, and Hayes says Jeep has “made a commitment to testing in Australia”.

Jeep Australia’s managing director Kevin Flynn repeated Hayes’ sentiments that the brand has more to do in appealing to Australian customers old and new, but said any patriotic association must be earned over time and not merely assumed.

“That’s a desire we could have, but we can’t dictate that,” he said. “We can make sure we have the right products that create that appeal, but that’s something we earn.

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“If I look at the model plan and the strategy we have on electrification, I know we can become a credible player and take our rightful share in this market – and getting Jeep to be synonymous with Australia”.

Jeep will introduce a plug-in hybrid version of the Grand Cherokee to the local market and is expected to roll out a range of pure EVs after that, calling on a choice of vehicles and four dedicated EV platforms that became available with the creation of Stellantis.