Car Spot: 1987 Jeep Comanche

A small pickup before they were cool …

I wasn’t sure if it was on my dime or Jeep’s when I received an email almost five years ago this past week inviting me to a media event in California introducing the new Jeep Gladiator (JT). I was just giddy to find out they were paying for my flight and overnights to Sacramento, Calif., to go off-roading along with other automotive media types. It was a trip I’ll never forget, talking Jeeps with the Jeep geeks like me.

RELATED Post: See my original review

Adding to the coolness, on display with the new Jeeps was a 1987 Comanche (MJ) that had only 10 miles on it. Yup, 10 miles! One of the Jeep guys told me that it comes out only on special occasions like this one. I remember this vehicle from the days my dad worked at AMC, which owned the Jeep brand.

In 1984 the new Cherokee compact SUV had proved a smash hit for Jeep. The XJ was a category innovator with its unit-body “UniFrame” construction and option of two or four doors. It didn’t take long to be adapted to pickup duty stretching the wheelbase 18.2 inches and the addition of a rear subframe to support the large 7.5-foot bed. The compact/midsize, 194-inch-long, pickup featured a single cab with a bench or bucket seats, and two- or four-wheel drive, and was named Four Wheeler magazine’s “Four Wheeler of the Year,” for its debut year.

There were four different engines available, the smallest was a Renault turbo-diesel I4, with just 2.1 liters in displacement. Next up was a 2.5-liter inline-four from AMC, which was used in the AMC Eagle and later the Eagle Premier. For 1986 only, AMC used GM’s 2.8-liter V6. And finally, AMC’s bulletproof 4.0-liter inline-six. Transmissions were four- or five-speed manual or three-, four-, or five-speed automatics. Its competition was Ford’s Ranger and Chevrolet’s S-10 pickups. The base price of the two-wheel drive model was $7,049 making it the lowest-priced Jeep for the 1986 model year.

While the Comanche saw some improvements in 1987, Jeep got a new owner when Chrysler bought AMC. Sad day. Remember my dad coming home and telling me about it. He had worked at American Motors since 1963. The Comanche did OK in sales, 29,245 in its first year, and increased to a high of 43,718 in 1988 ( Not too far off from what the Gladiator sold last year). From there it was downhill and Chrysler decided to phase out Comanche because of low sales and Chrysler’s poor attempts to make the Jeep brand fit into its hierarchy of Plymouth, Dodge, and Chrysler models. Jeep was to make only SUVs and Dodge would make trucks. Now that’s Ram.

The company decided to cease production of Comanche on June 12, 1992, after only a few thousand more trucks rolled off the Toledo, Ohio, assembly line. A total of 190,446 Comanches were made during its production run.

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What are they worth now? Well, this one you can’t have but a base 1986 with the turbo-diesel can be had, says Hagerty, in Excellent condition for just below $15,000. The one you really want is the Comanche Eliminator with AMC’s 6-cyl. 242cid/177hp MFI OHV and one in Excellent condition will go for just north of $22 grand.

Thanks for stopping by for a little bit of Jeep history. I have some other Jeep spots on our site so go check them out. Come back next week for another one of my spots along with its history. Have a great weekend.