Hello, $97,695 Jeep Wrangler. Meet 1,100 laid off assembly line workers.

Photo above – this probably is NOT the most expensive Jeep Wrangler in America. However, it’s the most expensive one I could find in 30 seconds. $97,695, including delivery and dealer installed options. Tax, title and tags extra.

If you’ve driven past your local Jeep car dealership recently, you may have noticed a loooong row of unsold Jeep Wrangler Unlimited Rubicons for sale, with windshield stickers that shout: “Up to $13,000 off!”

On a $97,695 vehicle, that puts it at about $85,000. Still out of reach? Don’t bother asking what the APR or monthly payments are. At 60 months, before finance charges, it’s $1,400 a month. Before interest.

Jeep’s CEO just laid off 1,100 workers. See link below. He also promised to resign at some point in 2026, because his strategy failed, and nobody wants $85,000 Jeeps let alone $97,000 ones. Geeze louise . . . do you think $97,000 jeeps are part of the reason people can’t afford to buy homes?

The UAW layoffs at Jeep are bad enough. The workers there were probably still celebrating last year’s strike, and new contract. What they won - “27% in base wage increases, cost-of-living adjustments, a shorter timeline to the top wage, rollover commitments for temporary/supplemental workers and a pathway for employees at battery plants to become unionized under the union's master agreement.”

Apparently, the UAW forgot to ask about layoffs.

I take no satisfaction in US autoworkers getting laid off because of ridiculously high sticker prices and Federal Reserve inflicted interest rate shock. But it’s not just Jeep. Nissan just announced they’re laying off 9,000 workers. “Globally”, no specific sites named yet. But there ARE 21,000 workers in the USA. Probably not all 9,000 cuts are coming to America, however. In related news, Nissan plans to release SIXTEEN new EV models. Which apparently will be assembled by robots, not unionized factory workers. And this week Nissan’s CEO took a 50% pay cut. He couldn’t resign – he’s only been on the job than 2 months. His predecessor resigned in September.

I’m just sayin’ . . .

Stellantis to lay off 1,100 Ohio Jeep plant workers