History certainly does repeat itself. I agree. Too bad the "Liberty' is the new Edsel of Jeep. No wonder the sales are down, The 'Nitro' should've been the 'Jeep'. Bejiing Jeep would rather keep the Jeep 2500(Cherokee) rolling than to update to a Liberty hand-me-down.That tooling was a waste of capital.

. . . but remember the 2008 Liberty is built on the same platform as the Nitro. From some of the cameo photos, it looks promising.

While I'm not a fan of the current Liberty, calling it "the new Edsel of Jeep" is a little overkill.

Hopefully the new version of the Liberty will be better and DC will learn. (sounds like they've started to since they appear to be getting rid of it's, um, styling) And, at least the Patriot and Compass are on the same platform. DC will be able to see which will recieve a better reception as a Jeep. (then they can kill the Compass) :^D Oh, why didn't they intro the Patriot in Sept ? (Patriot day)
now.. about a Hemi in the Wrangler.....

. . . hopefully, because DCX was having production problems. If they released the Patriot and there were production issuses, there would have been numerous articles written about its poor quality. For Patriot fans, it was better to let the Compass get bruised in the press.

Funny story about Liberty styling:

My daughter since she was first able to talk pointed out Jeeps wherever we went. I was amazed that she was almost always right. She correctly identified Wranglers, Cherokees, Grand Cherokees, Commanders, and even once a Grand Wagoneer as Jeeps without ever spending much time near anything but our Commander and Cherokee. The only thing she was ever identified incorrectly was the H3.

There was a Liberty parked next to a GC one day and she pointed to the GC and said, "Look, Daddy! There's a Jeep." I pointed to the Liberty and told her that was a Jeep, too. She smiled at me and thought I was pulling her leg. She told me, "Silly, Daddy! That's not a Jeep." I asked her what it was and she wouldn't answer. I'm not a Liberty hater though I'll admit I'm not the biggest fan. I sure didn't push such a view on my daughter. She just unbiasedly thinks the Liberty isn't a Jeep.

It's great your daughter is quite the car fan - you've certainly taught her well! However, IMO, GCs have never ever looked like Jeeps. They aren't styled inside or out like a Jeep and they def don't drive like one. Of course, since her exposure to Jeep is primarily based on your own Jeeps with the square headlights, I suppose it does make sense. Should be interesting to see what she thinks with the new JK's grill looking a lot lot like the current Libby and the new Libby looking like a small Commander...

While the Liberty has never been a beauty, it is not the "Edsel of Jeep". Because that honor certainly goes to the insignificant and butt ugly Compass. Now some would argue that since the Compass is not a "true jeep" it can't be their Edsel, but they did stick a Jeep badge on it so it is a Jeep from a marketing stand point.

Besides the Liberty models with the flat hood looked much better than those frog eyed versions. The Liberty platform is a capable little platform it just needs an aesthetic revision. As for the Compass, starting from scratch and trying again might be theh way to go.

Merry Christmas to all of you Jeep nuts!

I like the Nitro but I don't know how a Dodge makes Jeep the hero.?

Because the Nitro is actually based on a stretched version of the current Liberty platform. Its basically a KJ with a longer wheelbase and different body panels.

I know that but the current version is not selling well at the moment.and the Jeep styled one is not even for sale yet. You don't think it's possible the Dodge looks good and the Jeep will look horrible aka Compass. I hope not but untill the Jeep version goes on sale and has a 50000 unit back order then it's not part of the Jeep success.