News & Reviews- Make: Jeep

To most consumers Jeep is that iconic 4x4 brand that seems to have been around forever. It epitomizes rough and ready off-roading, that thought immediately conjuring up images of one of its many models trailblazing through a thickly wooded forest, trudging knee deep through marshland, fording a fast moving river, or spewing sand from oversized tires as it speeds up and over a dune, there's really no substitute for Jeep when it comes to serious 4x4s.

Of course there are, but none can trace their off-road roots back to 1941. Although to be fair, both Bantam and Ford built very similar utility vehicles for the U.S. World War II effort, simultaneously with Willys-Overland, the company that kept building them after the war under the CJ "Civilian Jeep" moniker, at least until 1953 when Kaiser and W-O joined forces to form Willys Motors, renamed Kaiser-Jeep in '63, a company that was gobbled up by American Motors Corporation in 1970, until AMC fell under the partnership and eventual Read Full Story

Since when did 475 horsepower and 470 lb-ft of torque merely become adequate in a performance SUV?

I remember when Jeep first added the Street and Racing Technology "SRT" initials to its flagship Grand Cherokee in 2006, that model's 420 horsepower 6.1-litre Hemi V8 enough to shame the super-SUVs of the era, including BMW's X5 4.8si, Mercedes-Benz' ML55 AMG, Porsche's Cayenne Turbo, and what was then the entirely new Land Rover Sport Supercharged. Now even the weakest of these four puts more asphalt churning thrust through its four wheels than the comparatively docile Jeep, the comparatively lightweight aluminum-bodied Range Rover Sport SVR kicking out 550 horsepower and 502 pound-feet of torque, whereas the next most powerful X5 M makes 567 horsepower and 553 lb-ft of torque, the Cayenne Turbo S produces 570 horsepower and 590 lb-ft of torque, and the new Mercedes-Benz GLE AMG 63 creates 577 horsepower and 560 lb-ft of torque, while the previously unfathomed Tesla Model X P90D Read Full Story

So, do you think Audi is selling well these days? They are. Last year's U.S. sales gained 11.1 percent for their best year ever, resulting in a total of 202,202 cars and crossovers sold.

What's this got to do with the Wrangler? Absolutely nothing, although when I saw the iconic Jeep's improved sales numbers that were up 15.6 percent for an all-time-high of 202,702 units throughout calendar year 2015, it caused me to stop in my tracks. First of all, except for one digit, the numbers are almost identical, this recalling Audi's sales total that I used in a recent review, at which point it dawned on me that Jeep actually sold 500 more of its the humble Wranglers over the same twelve month period than the entire Audi brand that's made up of 11 unique models and many more body styles, powertrain configurations and trim levels. A similar scenario plays out here in Canada, with the Audi brand good for a 9.1-percent increase resulting in 26,754, although the four-ringing German brand Read Full Story

When Jeep's new Cherokee hit the market in the late summer of 2014 none of us really knew how well it would do. I liked how it looked, although I remember some of my colleagues weren't so taken by its unusual styling, particularly its narrow, high-mounted headlights, but this said it's impossible to forecast how the buying public will react once a vehicle gets off the auto show stage and hits the road. As it turns out, it's been a massive hit for America's iconic 4x4 brand.

Last year, during its first full year of sales, the Cherokee found 178,508 buyers in the US, while here at home it sold 22,529 units, making it the sixth most popular compact SUV in the US behind the Honda CR-V (335,019), Ford Escape (306,212), Toyota RAV4 (267,698), Chevy Equinox (242,242) and Nissan Rogue (199,199), and the fifth most popular in Canada behind the Escape (52,198), CR-V (37,684), RAV4 (36,639) and Rogue (28,827); the Equinox only found 19,559 Canadian buyers last year, which actually puts Read Full Story

The new Jeep Renegade might just be the cutest of cute utes ever, its upright boxy stance and rounded elements almost making it look pudgy, but in an adorable way. Where it's Fiat 500X counterpart is ovoid all around yet still appears sporty, the Jeep pulls off a compact ruggedness thanks to that squared off upright design and plenty of thick black trim and body-cladding, not to mention four of the toughest looking Y-style five-spoke machine-finished alloys in the segment. Two of its most unique elements are the "X" marks the spot Phillips crosshead screwdriver taillights, but really the whole design is ultra-brave with loads of interesting details.

Inside, Jeep takes premium-level luxury to a whole new level for this subcompact SUV class. For instance, the dash top is padded all the way down to the lower midpoint of the instrument panel, which means that it wraps all the way around the primary gauge package as well as switches below that, while also circling right around the Read Full Story