By Christopher A. Sawyer
The Virtual Driver

(March 4, 2017) For most vehicles, this is the picture you’d expect to see at the beginning of a story. An interesting background, decent lighting, and a clear look at the front and side of the subject. Nothing special. Nothing fancy. Nothing too exciting. In many cases it’s almost an afterthought taken on the day before the vehicle being tested is collected, or on the first day when the weather cooperates.

That last item is especially important in the winter, though — for a vehicle like the Grand Cherokee — a snowy backdrop or a mud and snow-covered backroad would be preferred. Only this isn’t your run of the mill Jeep Grand Cherokee. It may have eight drive modes that can be selected via the rotary dial on the center console, but three — Sport, Track and Valet — are as out of place as the launch control button nearby. And there’s a question as to how effective the 20-in. Pirelli Scorpion all-season tires would be in your typical Jeep off-roading muck.

This only touches the surface because, under the hood sits a 6.4-liter Hemi V8 mated to an eight-speed automatic transmission with steering wheel-mounted paddle shifters. This isn’t your typical Jeep fare. Especially when said Hemi has 500 hp and 500 lb.-ft. of torque at its disposal. That’s when you begin to understand the launch control button and the need for those three otherwise anomalous drive settings.

Which brings us to the picture at right, taken after a snow storm which was followed by rising temperatures and rain. Each evening and every morning was shrouded in a multi-layer fog that would subside as morning moved toward afternoon, and return with the evening. The days were gray and overcast, filled with drizzle and a bite of cold that brought some small pellets of sleet.

It was in this mix that I played with the Jeep’s prodigious power output, and tried to come up with a visual that would describe its personality. As the thickest fog rolled past the house, I took the opportunity to reposition the vehicle in the driveway, and experiment with settings on the camera, fog level, etc. to capture the sheer malevolence of which this vehicle is capable. This photo, which you can enlarge by clicking on it, was the result.

Perhaps malevolence isn’t the right word as the Grand Cherokee SRT isn’t preternaturally evil. It’s an object. It does not have a soul. It can only reflect the inclinations of the person behind the wheel. Yet this amalgam of steel and rubber, leather and aluminum can loosen the restraints of even the most goodhearted and pure, tempting them to see just what lies in the next half inch — or inch, or more! — of throttle pedal travel. Especially when the engine slips into fuel saving mode by shutting down half of the cylinders. The engine note coarsens.

A vibration enters the cabin through the toe board and runs down the floorpan. The amount of noise increases. It saves fuel, but detracts from the experience. So you tip into the throttle a little more, encouraging the cylinder deactivation system to shut off, and welcome back the brutish smoothness the Hemi possesses. And you wonder, “How quick is this thing?”

That’s when the possession shifts from the engine to your soul. You scout the horizon fore and aft, looking for a sizable gap in traffic free from the local constabulary. And when you find it, you slow down. You slow down! Engaging launch control is out of the question, as is coming to a complete stop. So you drop down, down, down, still scanning the horizon for traffic…. and trouble. And, in no time you’re hard on the throttle, watching the horizon rush toward you from a seating position several inches, no feet above where you expect to be in a vehicle with this level of performance.

Speed mixes with the sonorous exhaust note to create a heady mix, an aphrodisiac of mechanical lust you never thought you could ever feel for a Jeep. A Jeep!

Searching for the next gap in traffic, you thumb through the instrument panel’s information screen menu to access the torque readout. Following the same protocol, you stab at the throttle and watch the numbers change like the 1/100th of a second reading on a digital stopwatch. They fly across the screen then begin to slow as they pass 350 lb.-ft. on their way to the magic 500 lb.-ft. mark. Switching over to the horsepower reading reverses the process, with the numbers’ speed increasing with vehicle speed. And the on-demand four-wheel drive system really puts the power down to the ground so no digit is wasted.

The same sort of thing happens with the g readings for acceleration and deceleration, aided in the latter case by the optional high-performance brakes; an addition well worth the $1,295 price. They grasp for numbers you hardly expect to see from a vehicle made by an off-road brand. Or you can laugh as you watch the fuel economy numbers dive toward zero, wondering if they will turn negative and suck oil directly out of the ground, as you plant your foot to the floor.

However, if you practice moderation, the EPA ratings of 13 city/19 highway/15 combined are easily met, and surprisingly close to what you used to get in the real world from an early V6 Ford Explorer that had a hard time pulling the skin off a grape or, as I once heard from a British colleague, an old lady off the toilet. (Don’t ask. I didn’t.) That’s real progress.

But it is the Track setting that truly baffles. Is anyone out there going to take their Grand Cherokee SRT onto the track? Maybe you’ll do it once to see what it’s capable of doing when pushed, but more than that? Doubtful. Sport is about as far as most will ever go, and even then it will be more rare than steak that’s red in the center.

We haven’t even come to price, but does it matter? The $66,795 base price is steep enough, but the as-tested tally of $82,455 is over $21,000 less than a similarly powerful Range Rover Supercharged; more if you want the long wheelbase edition of the Range Dog. An unfair comparison? Probably.

The British off-roader is more Saville Row than off the rack, and the Jeep is closer to drag racing on Woodward Avenue than working in London’s financial district. But that’s not the point. The Jeep makes a pretty good, if over the top, case for elevating a more prosaic model to a higher calling. Even if, that is, the Dark Ruby Red seats are a bit flash and that calling is more barns and stockades than stocks and bonds.

Like a penitent approaching the confessional, the questions you have to ask yourself are these:

    Can I live with the crassness of the cylinder deactivation system?
    Is my favorite work uniform an Armani sport coat, a handmade shirt, pressed blue jeans, and scuffed Heritage Boots?
    Does the word “ranch” mean acreage and not salad dressing?
    Do I need a 500 horsepower SUV?
    Do I need one that has 500 lb.-ft. of torque?
    Do I want one?

If you answer “yes” to the last question, dear penitent, understand that the devil will be whispering in your ear, egging you on, even as the words “Go and sin no more” are still rolling around in your head. But then you knew that, didn’t you?

The Virtual Driver