I’m facing a dilemma. Right now, my first car — a 1992 Jeep Cherokee XJ — sits in the woods in northern Michigan, abandoned, alone, and scared. Its owner ditched it and moved west to California, where he bought a bunch of rust-free cars and built a new family. Now it doesn’t know what to do, because it worries nobody can appreciate it like its former owner did, and that it is doomed to the scrapyard.
Right now I’m trying to decide what to do about my first car, a 1992 Jeep Cherokee XJ.
That’s this thing standing next to 19 year-old me:
Look at how nice that Jeep looked 15 years ago, and look at how fit I was! Alas, times have changed. I’m balder and fatter, and my Jeep’s rocker panels are filled with holes, the bottoms of the doors are rusty, and the flat suspension has been lifted.
I have to say: That was the best $1,400 I ever spent, even if the Jeep did have 218,000 miles on it at the time. Learning to fix this Jeep got my foot into the door at Cummins diesel company, which got my foot into the door at Chrysler, which got my foot into the door at Jalopnik, which led me here.
I owe this Jeep a lot, and the nostalgia of it all does tend to get to me.
It’s hard not to wax poetic about all those times I drove with my brother in the Shenandoah National Forest back in college:
And all those times I used that XJ to really hone my off-road skills.
That Jeep was the vehicle that took me to Detroit for the first time; I recall my mom road-tripping with me from Virginia. The Jeep had no AC, so we rolled with the windows down. Mom actually enjoyed that.
Then, when I got a full-time job after my Chrysler internship, that Jeep really took me to adulthood, and showed me the city of my dreams — Motor City.
I eventually lifted the Jeep:
What an absolute tank a stock XJ with a 3″ lift and 31s is:
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Anyway, Michigan winters and the stupidity of my youth did a bit of a number on my XJ. I hydrolocked the original engine, then I overheated the new engine and filled the rear axle with water during the off-road trip shown above (Drummond Island, the Mudfest of Michigan), toasting the bearings.
So now, after 30,000 miles and 15 years, here sits my first car — a 1992 Jeep Cherokee XJ — on a reader’s property in northern Michigan; it hasn’t moved in two years:
I want an XJ in my life, as XJs are what started it all for me, but I’m facing a dilemma.
Do I rescue my OG XJ and try to bring it back to life, fixing its body, restoring it, and eventually going through the considerable effort of a manual transmission swap, since I have no interest in driving an old auto Jeep? Or do I just pick up the two-door five-speed XJ below, which needs floorboards, carpeting, steering column trim, and a little bit of seat and rocker love, but otherwise seems great?
The reality is that finding an already-clean five-speed is a $10,000 affair, and I’m not about that. So that two-door above is tempting, though my original has my heart.
See, this is the trouble with first cars. There’s only one, and nostalgia’s powerful pull makes getting rid of it difficult, even when maybe that’s the most logical move. And so maybe the move is to just embrace that, and to get my OG XJ back and turn it into the ultimate.
All Images: Author
You said you want an XJ in your life as that’s where it all began, right? You’re sentimental and you still have the chance to rescue what imbued that sentiment. Seems only right.
A decade into my driving life, I’m still tooling around in my $1750 Saab. It’s not been the only car, but it’s the one that’s stuck around. I know I’ll be crying when it kicks the bucket.
Definitely keep 1st car!!!
That green, 2-door 5 speed XJ is the one I drove for 25 years. (I mean, not the SAME one, of course — and mine had a seriously rusted out undercarriage by the end of my time with it).
My precious! I didn’t take it off-road (I live in Alaska; the roads are bad enough). The one time it didn’t start for me, the starter had gone out. The best vehicle purchase I’ve ever made.
I understand the sentimental attachment to your original, but you have other priorities in your life now. But, I get keeping it, too.
Do you still have the Metropolitan? The one you wanted to turn into an electric vehicle? I’d love to see THAT project!
I voted move on, but in my driveway is my little blue ranger. Got er at 16, still my daily driver when I met my now wife, used it as “1-on-1-time” vehicle for all my kids thanks to just having 2 seats, and still have it these long 18 years later.
It’s been a pita. With the slew of repairs, dragging it with me cross country twice, hasn’t been a DD in 12 years and we all know what happens then vehicles sit. That said, my oldest is finally of the age he is both interested and capable, and loves wrenching on it and just going little things like repairing trim and rotating the tires even though it never gets driven.
It’s impractical and silly to hold onto a huge device like this. I think it would be more special to make fresh memories with a new rig, but here I am unable to let go of it. Ahh, the duality of man….
Time with the wife and kid are way more important now than huge wrenching projects for you. These years will fly by, cherish them. Wait till the kid is older and (if they are interested) pick a project you can both work on and make the memories with your kid.
I wish I’d have kept my first car, 84 Camaro. 305, 700R4. I did get 100k miles and a decade of faithful work out of it, and probably could have run it to a half million.
Wow, the poll results are so close. I figured it’d be overwhelmingly in favour of ditching the old Jeep.
I was a bit shocked at how close it is too. I voted to keep the OG. It needs probably about as much work in regards to the body as the new one which is much cleaner, but a 4 door will be better down the road with the kid and it has all those memories that Father Tracy could share if he keeps it long enough with the family
Although it is my second car, only because I couldn’t find one when it was needed, but I did find what I wanted in a couple of years later in 1978, and I still have my ’67 VW squareback.
Something’s still funky with the poll…every time I look at it, it’s exactly evenly split.
You will regret not keeping it. You’ve had it this long, you have to keep it, simply put. Any other Jeep will be any other Jeep. Regardless of what you do to keep this Jeep alive, it will still be this Jeep, and no other.
As a 47 year old, one of the less than handful of regrets I have in my life is not finding a way to keep my Trooper when I went to Europe. 20 years later, I still regret it.
20 years from now, you will regret it. Trust me, I promise.
You have a choice now to not regret this in 18 years, when Delmar drives you, this Jeep, and all his stuff to college.
I’mWe are going to look forward to reading that.Get rid of all the other XJ’s and focus on this one only. It’s your first baby, and now that you have a real baby, you probably “get it”.
Please don’t listen to the folks who say to “let it go”. The huge difference in their story versus yours is that you still have the thing. You don’t need to let it go. This can become a long term project.
One more thing, you have more than 3 vehicles, and being an automotive CEO, likely will always have more than 3 vehicles. As such, this one
shouldmust be one of them. Again, you’ll regret it. Retrieve it, and make it a long term project with milestones that we will help you maintain.I too drove a 1992 XJ Laredo. Blue with the grey interior. I loved that Jeep and dream of having another just like it again someday. I’d get the same color combination or look for my Grail, a forest green one with the tan interior. Seems like 99% of all Laredos from that era had the grey interior. Your burgundy one is a rear beast. Don’t let yours go. Bring it back to its glory.
The intersection of nostalgia and reality is often not one that offers the luxury of an easy choice.
Admittedly, I’ve no attachment to the first car I owned – a Saturn SC. It was fine for a car and I taught myself to drive stickshift in the thing, but it’s gone. What would I do if I got it back? Perhaps for a ride down memory lane on an afternoon with it would be entertaining. It would then rot as I used my nicer/newer car to do day-to-day stuff.
Even a car that I once owned that still have occasional nostalgia pangs for – a Mazda Protegé – would crash right into reality. As much as I idealize memories of its fantastic handling, the sublime steering, the linear and balanced brakes, and the road trips I went on with it, I realize the creation of those memories were a sacrifice of a vehicle getting used up. Reality hits: the machine was worn out by the time I was done with it. It had a litany of problems and corrosion issues and fixing them would have become an endless sinkhole of money, time, and frustration. The burden would have held me back from the future adventures I went on.
Your Jeep sounds in a similar state of falling apart. Your XJ has been sitting for years. It hasn’t made memories for you rotting away. Nor have the memories you made with it go away even though it is sitting across the country. However, as you’ve left your burdens behind, you’ve opened your world to a host of new automotive and non-automotive life experiences.
You didn’t drive away from your wedding in your XJ. You drove away from it in your YJ. Delmar came home from the hospital in your wife’s Lexus.
Delmar won’t have the same attachment to that old XJ you will – those are your memories. And yours exclusively. We got to ride shotgun in a sense with you. But Delmar will remember the first car him and his Dad had memories in. If it’s the YJ (which is an excellent vehicle for where you live and kids love them), he’ll remember that. Then he’ll eventually go on whatever journey he will, automotive or not.
Nostalgia is a hell of a drug, but reality is real life. Enjoy reality in all its messiness.
You’ve moved on, burn it…
My dad’s first car was a 1959 Corvette. He sold it long before I was born, and I only wish that he could have held on to…as it goes, I had to learn about cars pretty much on my own.
First cars are important for memories but also family bonds. Keep it safe and restore or tinker on it with the little one when he is old enough. Those memories and lessons will last a life time.
Having the photo documents and being able to recreate those times with your own child could be precious and unforgettable.
As I’ve said many, many times, I’m totally the wrong person to ask about this. I still have my first car (Jeep), and it’s a bit of both…I’ve spent a mildly shocking amount of money over the past decades to keep it going, but at least I know the entire service history of the vehicle, and I know exactly how it’s been treated. I’ve told work “Can’t be here this afternoon, I have an appointment” just so I could road test it with a mechanic. I’m even a little bummed if I can’t drive it on its ‘birthday’ (date of manufacture). Other than the headliner, I can’t say anything has gotten to the point it needs restoration, just [sometimes expensive] maintenance. I still feel like it has been worth every penny because of how good it feels to drive it. The history is a big part of that…it’s the Jeep that took me to prom, high school graduation, and college graduation. It helped move me into my first apartment, and later into my first house. I was sitting in the front seat when I accepted my current job. It’s the Jeep that took my mom and I on our first road trip after Dad died. It’s practically part of the family at this point.
In your case? I would say to look at just how much work needs to be done to the OG XJ at this point…it really will be a complete restoration, not just fixing a problem here and there. Is the ZJ still on the table as a project vehicle? Maybe compare what’s left on that to what the OG XJ needs, and pick one.
If finances were unlimited, we’d all keep our first car.
Since it’s already in bad condition, any money you sink into it will never be recovered. Your first car was not a rare and extraordinary car worth dropping thousands into, so the desire to restore it is emotional, not rational.
Now you have three people to consider. Keeping your first car will cost you money that could be used to create new memories with the new family. Both the emotional and rational side should see this as the far greater value.
Spending family money on keeping the first car you had while single, to honor memories made while single is a horrible idea unless the car is already in great condition.
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My advice: keep the memories, move on from the XJ. It is likely in rough shape after 2 years of outdoor storage. Trying to restore it will only make you resent it and sour your memories. Don’t even bother with a manual swap; finding a suitable manual donor is slightly easier than capturing a leprechaun riding a unicorn. Assembling the correct trans/clutch/flexplate/slave cylinder/pedal setup combo from several vehicles will drive you insane, because XJs of this period are a mind-boggling mishmash of AMC, GM, and Chrysler parts. Trust me, I own a 1989 Cherokee Laredo 5 speed that was a basket case when I got it. No, you can’t have it. Sorry.
I got my first car, a hand-me-down 1979 LTD 2 door, in 1985. I named it Fang. It was already whipped and oozing with malaise, but it had a V8. I rolled up my sleeves, and with the help of my dad and uncles, repainted and reupholstered it, swapped parts in from from wrecked patrol cars, and made it mine. I had to sell it to attend college, and recently I have had a nostalgic twinge. Remarkably, I found a 1980 2 door for sale, so I went to see it, thinking I could recreate Fang, with adult resources instead of part time fast food job finances of a teenager. I immediately decided to keep my memories intact.
The notion of souring old memories of a car by working on it now is interesting. To some the battle IS the memory, but I can relate to putting that set of experiences in a box in your brain safe and sound. Getting rid of the machine, doesn’t destroy the memories and a photo of one of these trips here will probably be a stronger connection than the rig sitting in the driveway.
Whatever you do, just please keep the XJ content coming to The Autopian!
Keep the original. You’ll regret. I wish I could get my old Toyota back
Also to add. Buying that green one to scratch an itch is an irrational thing to do. Keeping your old one is also irrational. So do the one that means more to you
First cars are like Wu Tang…. They’re forever. Keep it and restore it with your kid. Convert it to an EV or put the manual transmission in it. Just keep
It. You’ll regret it the rest of your life if you get rid of it.
I did my first car dirty, it was by no means spectacular, a 1986 Chevy Celebrity Eurosport. But at the time it was a 5 year old car with only about 50k on the clock while most of my friends got 10+ year old or stripped down econoboxes. I did burnouts in dirt roads, nearly flipped it, drove it several years back and forth from CT to VA and then handed it back to my Dad when I f’d up a plug change and had the timing so off it blew out a valve. Dad tried to keep it going, but body rot and just generally being an 80s Chevy sedan in New England with about 100k on it did it in.
That said, if he’d have just hung on to it, put it in the tractor shed with a tarp over it, would I have come back around to it 5/10/15/20 years later and really appreciated it? Absolutely. You get very few second chances, if you have the means definitely go get that car back, get it running, and someday hand it down to Delmar as his first.
I loved my XJ’s too, but they are getting older and requiring more upkeep. You gotta move on at some point.
I’m relatively certain all three of the cars I drove in high school met with a crusher, and all of them were due to my dad’s ineptitude and cheapness, which he blamed on me, a child who had only the barest knowledge of how the engine part of a car worked at the time.
In any case, I’d keep that thing and not even bother with a manual swap.
It’s destined to be your kid’s first car! How can you say no to that!
Why? It was an old pile 15 years ago (18 years old). By the time Delmar is 18 it’ll be 51 years old. And it’s just a Jeep. There are many like it.
Assuming you’re 45, for the sake or discussion, and you went to college in 1992. Would you have been excited to go to college in your dad’s 1941 Chevy, or whatever?
Um, yes, I would have been!
Why would one think an old car is getting better by storing it outside for 2 years. Cars are meant to be driven, and we have only so much time, therefore better enjoy the driving. Thus, sell the old stuff asap and get some nice fresh money (to invest in other cars). Not sure about the crash test rating of an old XJ so ideally don’t take any, but the three door version is indeed quite nice.
I liked the four door one with 2 on one side, one on the other and the hatch in the back. Now that one, I’d keep.