How Jeep’s Forgotten Toyota Truck Competitor Went from Flop to Cult Classic

Given the popularity of longstanding SUV nameplates like the Wrangler and the Grand Cherokee, Jeep has had little cause to venture into the pickup segment.

Even still, over the years, the brand has made a few attempts at building a vehicle with a bed. Like the Gladiator, the Comanche that came before it borrowed much of its design from another one of its Jeep contemporaries. 

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It was something of a flop during its time on the market, but the oddball pickup has since become a cult classic.

An XJ offshoot

Following the success of the Cherokee XJ, Jeep tasked its engineers with turning the SUV into a truck. What resulted was the Comanche (the MJ) that hit the market in 1986 and quickly went by the wayside just six years later.

In sharing so much of its DNA with the XJ, the Comanche offered many of the same advantages as its SUV-bodied counterpart. So, along with impressive off-road chops courtesy of its Cherokee-based suspension and axles, the MJ also benefited from robust build quality and extensive aftermarket support.

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What’s more, the Comanche featured identical running gear options to its stablemate, so reasonably maintained examples could deliver bulletproof reliability — especially if they happened to have an AMC 4.0-liter inline-six under the hood.

Of course, beyond its similarities to the Cherokee, the Comanche touted the practicality of a truck. Being American-built and being compact in size — with both two and four-wheel drive options — it’s of a rare breed, which only adds to its appeal today.

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Overlooked innovation

Despite the Comanche’s promise at the time of its release, the model wasn’t the success that Jeep hoped it would be, especially when compared to the Cherokee.

At the time of its debut, the Comanche was lost in the sea of competition coming from Detroit and Japan. Between the Ford Ranger, the Chevrolet S-10 and the Toyota Pickup (among other options), Jeep was already behind when it entered the compact truck segment.

Jeep

As such, over the course of its six-year production, the MJ was a slow seller, and fewer than 200,000 trucks rolled off the line.

By contrast, Jeep kept the Cherokee XJ on the market for a lengthy 17-year run, during which time it built more than 2.8 million examples of the boxy SUV.

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On the rise

While the Comanche was largely unappreciated in its day, the truck is finally starting to get the recognition it deserves. Recently, Hagerty found that the average used MJ sale price had increased by 118 percent over five years.

After all, the revival of the Gladiator has meant that many Jeep enthusiasts have turned their attention to older models, and the Comanche’s affordable price tag makes it an accessible option for a trail rig.

Moreover, in a market largely absent of compact pickup trucks, the MJ offers an alternative to the likes of the Ford Maverick and the Hyundai Santa Cruz.

With real-deal off-road capabilities and a unique unibody construction, it’s no wonder that the Comanche commands a dedicated, and growing, following today.

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