The average sale price of a brand new Jeep Gladiator is surprisingly expensive for a mid-size pickup.
Jeep Gladiators have arrived at dealers across the country, and while the cheapest Gladiator starts at $33,545, it’s a very barebones affair. You get the Jeep nameplate, the spare tire, the 3.6-L Pentastar V6 engine, the fold-down windshield and removable doors, and not a whole lot else.
The average sale price of a new Jeep Gladiator comes with significantly more options--to the point where it costs over $56,000.
According to a new report from The Drive, which uses data from Cox Automotive, most people spend $56,403 when purchasing a new Jeep Gladiator. That’s way more than any other mid-size pickup currently on the road.
To be fair to the Gladiator, this is mainly due to an old trick that carmakers use when selling new models. Most of the Gladiators being produced today are the higher-end trims such as the Overland or Rubicon. This forces people who really want a Gladiator now to spend as much as they can to get behind the wheel of Jeep’s new pickup. It also maximizes profits for Fiat Chrysler in the early days of production which helps fund additional production of less profitable trims.
Thus, the most readily available Gladiator on a dealer’s lot is likely the Rubicon trim, which starts at a hefty $43,545. Throw in a few options like a forward facing trail camera and a 3-piece hard-top roof and you’re easily pushing $50,000, as Cox Automotive’s data shows.
And it seems like Fiat Chrysler is mostly focusing on profits in the early days of the Gladiator. In the month of May, the Gladiator’s first full month of sales, just 2,548 pickups left dealer lots. That’s less than the Honda Ridgeline and the Nissan Frontier, and far less than the Ford Ranger which sold 7,750 units in May.
The Ford Ranger also had a much smaller average price at just over $37,000.
Expect Jeep to keep selling Rubicons until people stop buying them, then the lower Sport trims might bring down the average sale price.