Jeep Wagoneer spied beached in mud, in need of a tow

If you don’t get stuck at least once when off-roading, then you’re likely leaving some fun on the table. Well, if you have a way to get unstuck anyway. That said, this isn’t the kind of “stuck” Jeep would prefer to crow about. Some engineers out driving a prototype of the upcoming Jeep Wagoneer made an error in judgement when pulling off to the side of a road. Instead of finding hard-packed dirt and gravel, they found mud and muck.

Now, we know what you’re thinking, and we thought the same. Shouldn’t a four-wheel-drive Jeep truck be capable of escaping from this?

Yes, it probably should. However, the large pond directly to the right of the vehicle is rather intimidating. If the Wagoneer started sliding farther down the slope, it could have ended up in the drink. We would be similarly cautious, even if we did believe the Ram 1500-based Wagoneer could crawl on out of there. Regardless, the photos are not flattering, and we got a chuckle or two out of them this afternoon.

When it comes to actual news from these spy photos, there is one big break. Our spy shooter managed to catch a partial interior shot that exposed the Wagoneer’s large, vertically-oriented touchscreen. Since the Wagoneer is Ram-based, this has to be the 12-inch vertical touchscreen found in the current Ram 1500. We’re curious if it’s running the new Uconnect 5 operating system or the existing system found in the Ram. We haven’t tried the new system, but we’re big fans of the current Uconnect interface in that truck. The Wagoneer is expected to prioritize luxury to a greater extent than other Jeep products, so it makes sense to see FCA’s best in this upcoming product.

We’ve seen the Wagoneer in spy shots previous to this, and the three-row Grand Cherokee just popped up again earlier this week. The Wagoneer will also sport three rows, but it’s going to be the larger of the two with a more usable third row and cargo space. And even though the Wagoneer is going to have an independent rear suspension (shown again up close in this set of spy photos), it’ll be much more truck-like than the car-based platform the next Grand Cherokee is expected to ride on.

A debut is expected for the Wagoneer later in 2020, but we don’t yet know how coronavirus delays may have affected FCA’s launch cadence. At any rate, the big luxury Jeep isn’t too far away at this point. Let these photos serve as a reminder to carefully observe where you decide to pull off the road. You never know when a pond is going to jump out at you.

Related video: