The suggested names will eventually be cut down to just three, and the public will vote on the ultimate package name. If yours is selected, you’ll be given a chance to win a Jeep Grand Cherokee of your own.

As for the nameless, production-ready package, it’s a ride that the late Johnny Cash could embrace. Based on the Laredo X trim level, the new version sports a black grille surround, with a platinum chrome mesh grille. Headlamp bezels are blacked out, as is the liftgate light bar.

Jeep brand sales increased 37 percent in January versus the same month in 2011, its best January since 2008. All five Jeep brand models posted double-digit percentage sales gains in January, led by the Jeep Liberty's 68 percent increase. It was the mid-size Liberty's best sales month since March 2008. January marked the brand's 21st-consecutive month of year-over-year sales gains. The Jeep brand last month received a Polk Automotive Loyalty Award for the 2011 model year for "Most Improved Loyalty to Make." The Jeep Grand Cherokee logged its best January sales in six years with a 40 percent increase, compared with the same month in 2011. The Grand Cherokee was recognized last month as a Consumer Guide "Recommended Pick" for the 2012 model year.

Two of Chrysler Group's latest products – the all-new Jeep Grand Cherokee SRT8® and the new Dodge Charger – were named two of Winding Road magazine's "Best Cars of the Year," an annual honor that recognizes the best driver's vehicles in the market.

The Jeep brand has introduced a new, production-intent concept version of its award-winning Grand Cherokee, a unique model with distinctive yet stealthy exterior cues designed to attract new Jeep Grand Cherokee enthusiasts and customers. Showing the vehicle publicly for the first time at the Houston Auto Show in January, Jeep also announced that it has created an online contest for consumers to name the new production-intent Grand Cherokee concept. The person who submits the winning name will receive a new 2012 Jeep Grand Cherokee. For more details and official rules, visit Jeep.com/namemyride.

Chrysler Group LLC will try to relieve some of the pressure on its Toledo Assembly plant’s busy Wrangler line by adding 25 workers per shift to produce an extra 100 vehicles per day, union officials said Tuesday.

As for the Toledo-built Jeep Liberty, production is still expected to end sometime this year, and officials say a replacement model will be in showrooms next year. The automaker has kept specifics of that model close to the vest. Aside from its originating from a Fiat platform, little has gotten out. Mr. Manley wasn’t eager to change that.

“It’s such an important vehicle for us, we have to get it right,” he said.

In Jeep enthusiast circles, there’s been concern and debate over whether the replacement will give up its off-road bona fides for a more carlike ride to appeal to international buyers.

To that question, Mr. Manley fired back one of his own.

“Let me ask you a question,” he said. “Do you think Grand Cherokee’s a Jeep?”

That’s rhetorical, of course. In Jeep’s eyes, the new Grand Cherokee stays true to the company’s spirt and go-anywhere capability while adding to its quality and on-road manners.

“I think we did it successfully with Grand Cherokee,” he said. “We will do it successfully with the Liberty replacement. As always, I listen to our Jeep customers, we respond to them, and we try to produce vehicles they’re very happy with and expand the Jeep family.”

"Our future, like the history of our brands, is interwoven with the City of Detroit," said Chrysler Group Chairman and CEO Sergio Marchionne. "Detroit long has been home to renowned innovators and craftsmen. So it is in the Motor City, home of our industrial heritage and a resilient people, that we are entrusting the manufacture not only of the ultimate American sports car, the SRT Viper, and the Jeep Grand Cherokee – the most awarded SUV ever – but also a diesel version of the Jeep Grand Cherokee for North American markets.

"We believe that investing in Detroit is not only the right thing to do, but it is a smart thing to do as we work to write the next chapter in our shared history," Marchionne said.

The new third crew of approximately 1,100 jobs that Chrysler Group is adding at JNAP, home of the Jeep Grand Cherokee and the Dodge Durango, will be part of an operating pattern, called the 3-2-120 schedule, that allows each employee an additional 49 days off per year while enabling the plant an additional 49 days of annual production.

Mopar plans on supplying as many JK-8 kits as it can to dealers, though given the size of each package, it's proving difficult for them to carry a large amount in stock. "The kit is too big and too complex to have too many on the shelf," remarked Gorlier. That said he's enthusiastic about the response so far. "It's exciting for an aftermarket product."

The only automotive plants that is going to keep running from the Detroit Three is the ones in Toledo, Ohio. It is the birthplace of the Jeep brand and Toledo’s wealth is rising and falling with the successes and failures of Chrysler’s off road marque, and this year, the automobile manufacturer is going to be seeking out volunteers that will continue assembling their hot selling Wrangler and Liberty SUVs.

Jeep brand sales were up 50 percent in November, the brand's best November sales performance since 2003 and its 19th-consecutive month of year-over-year sales gains. All Jeep brand models posted sales gains in November, including a 23 percent increase in Jeep Grand Cherokee sales.The new Jeep Compass logged the largest sales increase. Compass, offering unsurpassed 4x4 fuel economy and off-road capability in the compact-SUV segment, posted an imposing 887 percent sales increase in November, its eighth-consecutive monthly sales record this year. The Compass' 887 percent increase was by far the largest year-over-year percentage sales gain of any Chrysler Group model in November.

Jeep Wrangler set another monthly sales record in November; the SUV's sixth-consecutive monthly record this year. Not only were Wrangler sales up 41 percent in November, the most capable and recognized vehicle in the world also received the Residual Value Award in the "Compact Utility" category from ALG, the industry benchmark for residual values and depreciation data. The annual ALG Residual Value Awards recognize vehicles that are predicted to retain the highest percentage of their original price after a conventional three-year period. In addition, Kelley Blue Book's kbb.com named Wrangler Best Resale Value in its class and, for the second consecutive year, one of the Top 10 cars with Best Resale Value.

• Jeep brand sales (36,246 units) increased 50 percent compared with the same month last year (24,202 units)


• Jeep Wrangler sales (9,225 units) were up 41 percent versus November 2010 (6,552 units)


• Jeep Liberty sales (5,201 units) increased 53 percent compared with November sales a year ago (3,398 units)


• Sales of the Jeep Compass (4,262 units) were up 887 percent versus the same month in 2010 (432 units)


• Jeep Patriot sales (4,013 units) were up 46 percent compared with November 2010 (2,754 units)

"The 2012 Jeep Wrangler Rubicon owned nearly all aspects of off-road testing during our annual 'Four Wheeler of the Year' competition," said Four Wheeler Editor John Cappa. "The grueling 1,000-mile trek put each contending vehicle through its paces in several on- and off-road environments, including high-speed graded roads, jagged rocks, shifting sand dunes, and more. The universal do-all capability of the Jeep Wrangler Rubicon allowed it to outperform the other competing 4x4s, making it our 2012 Four Wheeler of the Year award winner."