Jeep Trick (Townsend, Tennessee)

Back in 2020, Allison Parliament (not shown) drove her silver 2018 Jeep Wrangler Sahara JKU from somewhere in Alabama to Ontario, Canada.

Ms. Parliament was on a mission of mercy: provide companionship for her octogenarian grandmother, isolated by Canada's COVID lockdown.

According to legend, Ms. Parliament made the 1300-mile-plus trek in a single day (the Wrangler's rep for alternator issues notwithstanding).

When she pulled into a Canadian gas station, a random Canuck gave her shit about bringing COVID from the Lower 48 to The Great White North.

Shaken, Ms. Parliament bought a bag of rubber ducks at discount store in Bancroft, Ontario.

She did so to cheer herself up, planning to hide said ducks in her new accommodation as a gentle practical joke on her roommate.

When Ms. Parliament left Stedmans V&S department store, she spied another Wrangler.

To express automotive solidarity, she gifted the absent driver one of her plastic waterfowls. She secured a magic marker, wrote "Have a Great Day" on the polymer avian's flank and left the duck on the truck.

"The owner was this burly, scary-looking, 6-foot-5 guy, asking, 'What are you doing?'" Parliament told The Detroit News.

"But he was smiling. He thought it was great. He said it was the best thing to come up with and the world needs more of this."

The world got a lot more of this when she posted a picture of the duck on the truck and the story of its genesis on Facebook.

By the end of that day, the post garnered 2k likes, setting in motion the viral #duckduckjeep movement.

Four years later there are millions of rubber ducks perched on the dashes of millions of Jeeps. And counting.

Jeep owner Chrysler’s aided and abetted this pervasive Parliamentary procedure. To the point where the automaker’s media minions brought a 61-foot tall rubber duck to the 2022 Detroit Auto Show.

All of which raises an interesting question: what the duck is that all about? First...

By The Numbers

It's important to note that the duck phenom arrived in the midst of Jeep's declining fortunes.

In February, Jeep dealers were home to some 2k unsold 2022 vehicles and 143k unsold 2023 models.

Thanks in part to a cyber breach at a dealer management system supplier, Jeep dealers now have a 120-day supply of new models, one of the highest measures on record.

More to the point, the marque is bedeviled by questionable model choices (i.e., a non-Trail Rated econobox) soaring prices and, again, poor reliability, high maintenance costs and above-average depreciation.

This despite the fact that Jeeps have been in production since since 1941, when the Toledo, Ohio-based Willys-Overland Motor Company signed a contract with the U.S. War Department to produce the first military Jeep.

The Cult of the Duck

After seeing tens of thousands of Jeeps clogging the roads in and around Townsend and Pigeon Forge Tennessee, gathering for the 12th annual Great Smoky Mountain Jeep Club Invasion (last year's shirt shown), I can attest to the fact that Jeep owners are a bona fide cult.

This is as it was, certainly. Only more so.

The "give a rubber duck to a Jeep you like" trend - resulting in duck-laden dashes and roof-mounted inflatable ducks - may not be saving Jeep from ruin, but it's changed the nature of ownership.

For one thing, the semi-surreptitious duck donation movement signals owners affinity with each other in a deeply personal, I'm-in-with-the-in-crowd, cult-like way. The ducks are the Jeep version of a MAGA hat, if you will.

They will! A significant number of Jeeps making the scene in Tennessee – driven almost exclusively by white owners – fly red, white and blue Trump 2024 flags off the rear of their vehicles.

Politics aside, onboard ducks tell the world "I'm a fun person! In a fun vehicle! Having fun!" Rendering moot rational concerns about the vehicle’s reliability, practicality, price and resale.

Then There's The Competitive Element

Participants [secretly] duck-up Jeeps they admire. If an owner hasn't spent tens of thousands on lights, lifters, wheels, tires, bodywork, winches and, especially, a custom paint job... they're duck out of luck.

A gift to the accessory market worth billions.

While the money spent customizing a Jeep to its owner's taste is more-or-less irrecoverable, it locks Jeep owners into ownership. Into The Cult of Jeep.

Dodging the Harley Davidson Bullet

In the last ten years, sales of the equally storied, equally technologically challenged Harley-Davidson brand have cratered by 50 percent.

The motorcycles' core clientele – Old Fat White Guys – are dying off. The next three gens aren't buying Harleys.

Declining Jeep sales be damned. From what I've seen, Jeep doesn't face the same long-term fade out.

Many if not most of the thousands of Jeeps destroying my Smokey Mountain solitude have children on board, enjoying open top (and door) family togetherness.

As stated above, Mom and Dad's custom Jeep isn't going anywhere – other than into the happy hands of their progeny and/or off-road (maybe). For good reason.

Whether it's because of their timeless style or huge fun factor, some toys never lose their inter-generational appeal. Keyboards, guitars, dogs, computers, big-screen TV’s and Jeeps, for example.

When their users bond with strangers who share their pleasure, especially amongst people who don't, their toy gains cult status.

DuckDuckGo!

Word on the street: Stellantis is working on an electric Jeep. Good luck with that. Meanwhile, the Jeep Compass is exhibit A why the brand is in the shit.

The Compass suffers from water leaks, hard starting, noisy brakes, transmission issues, a defective powertrain, shoddy structure, a lack of safety features, an underperforming engine, below-average fuel economy and small cargo capacity.

As if that wasn't enough to alienate the duck-crazed Jeep faithful, Chrysler deleted the Compass' off-roadable Trailhawk trim level. On a vehicle with a fixed roof.

The Compass hasn't made a single appearance in the last three days. No surprise there.

Allison Parliament RIP

Ms. Parliament was uncomfortable with the fame created by her semi-inadvertent duck cult. In June, at the tender age of 34, she "passed away unexpectedly" from "natural causes."

That's how her Mother and the media characterized her death. More than a few members of the Jeep Duck Cult whispered that Ms. Parliament committed suicide.

Her mental struggles were well documented, but the possibility that the OG duckmeister killed herself remains an unsubstantiated rumor.

Regardless of her mental challenges, Ms. Parliament's brand-reinvigorating indeed defining legacy lives on.

"I love the ability to get out in the middle of nowhere and have fun with amazing people," she told The Detroit News. "There’s a freedom you don’t get with a lot of vehicles. It comes with an automatic family."

Jeep’s new owners Stellantis gets it. They’re continuing to promote duck-related Parliamentarian pride.

Here’s hoping they don’t duck their obligation to build a massively better vehicle, and focus on building fun, reliable Trail Ready transportation; rather than practical people carriers that owners may respect, but never love.

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