Jeep enters it's 75th year with 2015 sales estimated to hit 1.2 million units, it's best year ever, and only the start.

Fiat Chrysler will kick off Jeep's year long 75th anniversary this week on a high note: with freshly minted U.S. and global sales records for what has been one of the industry's hottest brands.

The records are in the bag -- Jeep topped last year's record global and U.S. sales totals in early November -- but where they will end up won't be known until December sales are reported this week.

In 2014, the brand reported 1,017,019 global sales, the first time Jeep had topped 1 million sales. In a presentation to investors in early December, FCA said global sales had been running up more than 20 percent through much of 2015 and that the company expected to finish the year around 1.2 million Jeeps. In the brand's largest market, the U.S., sales through November were up 23 percent to 775,374.

But several recent developments are likely to push Jeep's 2016 global sales past 2015's. The brand has an aggressive growth curve planned to reach 2 million global sales by 2019.

Jeep began producing Renegades in a massive new plant in Pernambuco, Brazil, in the first quarter of 2015, and has been ramping up production there to sell the subcompact SUVs across South and Latin America. FCA said the plant -- which produced about 52,000 Renegades in 2015 and will also build two other vehicles for local sale -- won't be fully ramped up until late 2016.

In October, Jeep began producing Cherokees in a joint venture factory in Changsha, China. Full production at the plant is expected to ramp up through 2016 and expand to include the Renegade.

For 2016, Jeep will replace the Compass and Patriot with a single vehicle it calls the C-SUV. According to spy photos, that vehicle shares a platform with the subcompact Renegade.

This year marks the 75th anniversary of the brand's birth: the U.S. War Department's awarding of a production contract on July 31, 1941, to Willys-Overland Motor Co. to build the Willys MB. (The name Jeep came later.) To mark the occasion, Jeep plans to unveil a series of anniversary models, according to its 2014 product plan.

The brand will also freshen its Grand Cherokee flagship this year. It is developing a three-row luxury Grand Wagoneer SUV for 2019 that will share the Grand Cherokee's platform.

Larry P. Vellequette

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