5 years ago, you'd not have caught me alive in an XJ, ZJ, or any other kind of Jeep wagon.  I was dead set against unibody, and hated not having a top that could come off or doors that could be removed.  My tune is a little different now, and I know that.  But still it was somewhat of a surprise when I came out of my house this morning and realized I had 3 Jeep Wagons in my driveway and no SWB Jeep to be seen.

As it turns out, a Jeep with hard windows and a hardtop can be a nice thing to have.  I don't worry as much about my stuff disappearing anymore, and can feel comfortable making more than one stop if I'm on a shopping trip.  Now I can go to the parts store, buy Digornio, and return the rental DVDs all without worrying too much about my crap growing feet and walking away.

The other thing I noticed this morning was how the rear of the '08 Grand Cherokee kind of mimics the rear of the '67 C-101.  I doubt I'd have ever noticed if they weren't parked like that and I was in a state of semi-shock from all the wagons out front.  I'd like to think that Jeep designers planned it... but I'm not all that naive.

See, before I moved to sunny SoCal I came from the land of rust.  And, a rusty unibody is no fun at all.  Talk about loss of structural integrity.  Also, parts were just becoming plentiful for the SWB Jeeps... that is to say you could find any part you needed without too much trouble.  That wasn't the case when I started playing with Jeeps, and I was enjoying it.  Then, the wagons were hard to find parts for, were rusted out, and were still not that cheap.  Fast forward 5 years and put me where a rusted Jeep doesn't even have a single hole and I find XJs for cheap all over the place, the unibodies are still in tact, and I find I like locking my crap up without having to buy 1000 bucks worth of locking boxes to do so.

Eh, maybe the wagons do have a place in the Jeep lineage after all.