Jeep Wrangler May Get Aluminum Body

The next-generation Jeep Wrangler SUV due in 2017 could be built with an aluminum body to help boost fuel economy, Chrysler Group CEO Sergio Marchionne tells reporters at the Paris auto show.

He says Chrysler is likely to move to smaller, turbocharged engines and could drop the Wrangler's current body-on-frame construction and switch to a unitized platform.

Marchionne says it would be "outrageously expensive" to retool the company's factory in Toledo, Ohio, to put aluminum bodies on the Wrangler's current steel frame. He hints a more likely option would be to shift to an all-aluminum unitized architecture that could be produced in one of Chrysler's several existing unibody factories.

But Automotive News notes that moving Wrangler production out of Toledo would contradict Marchionne's pledge in January never to do so. It also would raise the ire of workers there who consider Toledo the Wrangler's rightful home.

Chrysler may have little choice as fuel economy targets generate growing pressure to significantly improve the efficiency of all models. Marchionne says he likens Chrysler's internal debate about embracing aluminum to the one Ford Motor Co. had before deciding to develop an aluminum body for its 2015 model F-Series pickup truck.