2014 Jeep Grand Cherokee SRT Review & Road Test

The Jeep Grand Cherokee SRT: you'll drive away in one for eighty-something thousand bucks. So it's unbeatable value compared with the German SUVs. And it's a real man's SUV. The sort of vehicle the Marlborough Man would drive if he hadn't croaked prematurely thanks to emphysema. The base model Mercedes-Benz ML is more expensive than one of these babies, and you just about need a nice pair of Jimmy Choo pumps and a Prada tote to drive the Benz. The Lexus RX 350 is line-ball on price with the SRT, and three times as girly. On a good day. The Grand Cherokee SRT sits right up the other end of the hormonal spectrum. It got all the testosterone. Jeep calls it the ultimate performance SUV. But in reality, it's the ultimate PMT soccer Mom's don't-mess-with-me PMT conveyance. Very few SUVs will manage to keep up, and the ones that can are insanely expensive. The Porsche Cayenne Turbo is a whopping $222,000. And a BMW X6 M or Mercedes-Benz ML 63 AMG Benz will cost you almost $200,000 -- that's equivalent to two Grand Cherokee SRTs and a decent old holiday in Europe. To be fair, these three Euros are all slightly more powerful. But -- trust me -- the Jeep is anything but anorexic -- even in a relative sense. The Grand Cherokee SRT occupies a place where glorious irrelevance, affordability and insane point-to-point capability intersect. So, move over BMW X5, and Audi Q7 - and it's not even like these notionally more premium vehicles are even made in Germany. Joke's on you if you think that. Like the Mercedes-Benz, the BMW X5 and X6 hail from the USA, and the big, fat Audi is built in Bratislava. Perversely, the Grand Cherokee is the closest of all four to being authentically German: it's made in Austria. More at www.AutoExpert.com.au