AUBURN HILLS, Mich. — Jeep is betting Americans still love a good comeback story.

It’s a mantra that’s reverberating through the quintessential SUV brand — from its CEO to a marketing campaign with LL Cool J — following yearslong sales and market share declines that have taken a toll on Jeep and its parent company, Stellantis.

“This isn’t just a comeback. This is the Jeep brand reclaiming a segment we invented and defined,” Jeep CEO Bob Broderdorf said during a recent media event.

Jeep has been in a rut this decade, despite the brand’s well-known off-road capabilities that have carried it for most of the past century. It has experienced six consecutive years of U.S. sales declines amid a leadership carousel, dearth of new products and a failed premium pricing strategy to boost profits.

But now, the coveted SUV brand has realigned pricing across its lineup, scored its best quarterly sales gain in more than two years and is in the midst of its largest mainstream product blitz this decade.

“We’re going to grow, grow and grow,” Broderdorf told CNBC sitting in a redesigned 2026 Jeep Grand Wagoneer at the company’s design dome in suburban Detroit. “That’s the mission. And do it in a healthy way.”

The redesigned Grand Wagoneer is symbolic of the brand’s troubles and comeback attempt. It was Jeep’s foray into luxury — topping $111,000 fully loaded in 2021 — that was relatively overpriced and overcomplicated compared with its peers and experienced several production and quality issues.

The redesigned model lineup is less expensive, simpler and better positioned against other large American SUVs rather than foreign competitors such as Land Rover. Its production issues also have eased.

“We confused our buyers. We confused our dealers,” Broderdorf said at the media event. “I’m here to tell you we got the message. We’re fixing it.”

But some things take longer than others to fix in the automotive world. The brand’s sales remain significantly lower than expectations, and Jeep’s overall quality problems remain a work in progress after the realignment of its vehicles and pricing strategy.

“This is one of the areas that needs to improve. We have been improving, but proof is in the pudding,” Broderdorf told CNBC.

Among 32 major automotive brands, Jeep ranked last in Consumer Reports’ annual grading last year that includes a combination of road test scores, safety ratings, and predicted reliability and owner satisfaction data.

Most recently, the brand announced a recall of more than 320,000 plug-in hybrid Wrangler and Jeep Grand Cherokee models due to a risk of fire. The company filed a recall late last month with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, but no remedy has been released.

The company told CNBC a solution is expected in December involving a software update to the high-voltage battery pack control module of the vehicles to improve diagnostic capability for early detection of internal battery damage.

The recall comes at an inopportune time, as Jeep launches a Wrangler-inspired, all-electric SUV called the Recon. The vehicle will be revealed this week ahead of the Los Angeles Auto Show after first debuting as a concept vehicle in 2021.

The Recon was initially hailed as key to the Jeep brand’s future, with executives saying it would help the company become a leader in all-electric vehicle sales, including a prior plan for the brand to achieve 50% EV sales in the U.S. by 2030.

But expectations have diminished as Stellantis appointed a new CEO and demand for EVs slowed amid regulatory changes, including the end of up to $7,500 in federal incentives in September to purchase a plug-in electric vehicle.

Broderdorf said the end of federal incentives is expected to impact sales across the industry, including with the Recon, but the new SUV functions as an EV “bookend” alongside the sportier Wagoneer S for the Jeep brand’s electric portfolio.

“I’m not going to just chase volume just to chase volume,” he said during a recent media call. “I want to sell cars in the right way. Everybody who wants a [battery-electric vehicle], Recon, I want to make sure that we’re there for them. After that, it doesn’t really matter to me.”

The Recon is being produced at Stellantis’ Toluca Assembly Plant in Mexico alongside the Wagoneer S, Jeep Compass and the new Jeep Cherokee, which is being offered exclusively as a hybrid vehicle.

Broderdorf, who started leading the brand in February, said the plant can easily adjust to produce the higher-volume Compass and Cherokee depending on demand for EVs. Both gas-powered vehicles also are expected to be manufactured in the U.S. in the coming years for additional flexibility.

Several automakers reported major declines in their EV sales in October following the end of the federal incentives as well as the Trump administration eliminating fuel economy and emissions fines, which EVs helped offset.

Jeep has released few details about the Recon other than it will be a “brother” to the Wrangler — Jeep’s iconic, off-road and open-air SUV. Jeep previously touted a smaller concept version of the vehicle achieving 0-60 mph in roughly two seconds.

The Recon is the last of four new vehicles Jeep is revealing in four months. It started with the crucial new Cherokee SUV, followed by updated versions of the Jeep Grand Cherokee and Grand Wagoneer.

Before the Jeep Wagoneer S last year and upcoming Recon, Jeep was focusing on electrified sales of plug-in hybrid electric versions of its Wrangler and Grand Cherokee rather than all-electric vehicles.

Part of Jeep’s “comeback” has included an aggressive push in new marketing and advertising campaigns that have included actor and musician LL Cool J and a raunchy ad campaign featuring comedian Iliza Shlesinger for the Jeep Grand Wagoneer.

The campaigns, led since June by Jeep’s new vice president of marketing and communications, Wendy Orthman, are consistent with Broderdorf’s comeback mantra, including featuring LL Cool J’s “Mama Said Knock You Out.”

“Don’t call it a comeback. I been here for years,” the iconic rapper and actor says in the song featured in the ad campaign, calling Jeep “the original influencer.”

The marketing and advertising efforts help, but the most important thing for the company remains new products, specifically the Jeep Cherokee that competes in the highly popular compact/midsize SUV markets, industry watchers said.

“They’re still trying to fix things, getting the pricing right, getting the product right,” said Stephanie Brinley, associate director in AutoIntelligence at S&P Global Mobility. “But there’s a lot of potential, especially with the Cherokee coming back. There’s a lot still coming on in the pipeline, and I think it’ll position them in a good space.”

The company axed a prior version of the Cherokee as well as a smaller SUV called the Renegade amid profit pressures under former CEO Carlos Tavares in 2023.

Jeep’s sales through the third quarter of this year were up less than 0.5% compared with a year earlier. Jeep’s U.S. market share has fallen from 5.4% in 2019 to 3.7% since 2024, according to Cox Automotive.

Jeep’s been dealing with a spiraling sales decline that started after the brand reached an all-time high of more than 973,000 SUVs sold in 2018. The brand’s sales have fallen 40% since then to less than 590,000 units last year in the U.S.

As sales plummeted, Jeep’s average transaction prices, or ATPs, were around $54,000 during 2023-24 — well above the industry average of roughly $48,500 or less during that time period, according to Cox Automotive.

Jeep’s ATPs through the third quarter of this year were less than $49,800, according to Cox. That remains a premium over the average industry of $48,588 but is far lower than prior years.

One thing that hasn’t been declining this year for Jeep is its inventory levels, according to Cox Automotive. Jeep had the highest days’ supply of any major brand other than Ford’s Lincoln at 146 days in October. The industry average for days’ supply, which calculates the amount of days of inventory dealerships have based on recent sales, was 88 days, Cox reports.

“Looking at mainstream brands, recent inventory trends reveal that some manufacturers may be edging toward overstocked territory as consumer demand shifts,” Erin Keating, Cox Automotive executive analyst, said in a blog post Thursday, citing Jeep specifically.

Jeep’s comeback plan started with Stellantis CEO Antonio Filosa, who previously led the brand. It has accelerated, with the Filosa’s support, under Broderdorf.

“It’s not like ’26 is going to be a 1-million-unit year because they’re fixing things. Once you kind of get off track, getting back on track can take a little bit of time as well, but it starts with product,” Brinley said. “And that’s what they have coming in 2026.”