When you hear the name 'Jeep', the first image that comes to mind is probably a wartime Willys bouncing up and down over bumps in grainy black and white, or perhaps a boxy and extensively-modified Wrangler tackling the boulders of Moab. The upright grille slats, the bonnet tie-downs, the chasm where the door once was before the owner unbolted it... all iconic images befitting of the name.
What I don't picture when I hear that fabled name is a leather-lined two-tonne luxury barge intended to rival the likes of the BMW X5 and Mercedes-Benz GLE. In fact, given their radically different foci, it's hard to imagine these brands ever trying to run in the same race. I certainly don't picture a Jeep with a charging cord hanging out the side of it, either.
Yet, here we are in 2024 and that's precisely what the newest Jeep in the range is. Specifically, this is the Grand Cherokee 4xe, and it's the antithesis to anything at all Jeep-like. Only offered in range-topping Summit Reserve trim, it sports a leather-lined interior and a steep six-figure price tag which would make the average Wrangler-driver wonder what on Earth the Jeep name was doing on the front of it.
Intrigued by this out-of-pocket proposition and whether it's worthy of bearing the Jeep name, I grabbed the keys to one and headed for Mount Crawford Forest in the northern Mount Lofty Ranges, right on the outskirts of South Australia's famous Barossa Valley wine region. Its pine tree-laden tracks would be my playground to see just what cloth this thing is cut from.
$129,950 is a lot of money for any car, but particularly for a Jeep. Indeed, that's a staggering $52,000 more than the most affordable Grand Cherokee in the range, or to look at it another way, an entire Jeep Compass.
Certainly, though, I could see where plenty of that money had gone from behind the wheel as I left Adelaide and headed for the Hills. Seemingly every surface is wrapped in supple stitched leather – from the dashboard to the centre console, and even the airbag cover on its big steering wheel. It may be a hybrid, but it's clearly not one built to appease vegans.
I'm sure another good chunk of that money went into the additional third screen ahead of the passenger, which has been cleverly polarised so that it's invisible from the driver's seat. Considering there's an HDMI port connected to it and a household power outlet in the cabin, your passenger could hypothetically fire up the PlayStation or watch movies off their laptop on a long drive, making that polarisation a good thing for alleviating jealousy.
At least massage seats are there for both in the front row, with the vigour able to be dialled up all the way to the hands of a 6'4" shiatsu-practicing Swede. However, I'm still unsold on the gimmickry as a justification for paying house-deposit money for a Jeep. Pleasant on this 150km round trip? Certainly, but it still smacks of inner-city café avocado toast levels of inflation.
Mind you, the performance lives up to the price tag as the PHEV powertrain has some real poke to it, with a torque figure that leaves even high-end sports cars jealous. This made for quick progress on the way to the near-Barossa, where it eagerly gets up to triple-digit speed and sits there comfortably on long, wide country roads. The transition between petrol and electric power is usually quite seamless as well.
Even better is the standard air suspension which serves an important dual purpose in off-road-minded vehicles like this. On South Australia's questionably-maintained roads, it delivers water-bed smoothness and helps the car sit lower to reduce aerodynamic drag, but once arriving at Mount Crawford's tree-lined tracks, its five different height settings allowed me to jack it all the way up to offer brodozer levels of ground clearance.
Clearly, though, this isn't enough clearance for some. When I picked the Jeep up, I noticed a few remnants of others' off-road adventures, including some scrapes on the underside. The only point of contact I heard during my day-trip was one meeting between the underbody protection plates through a set of deeply rutted tracks. The paint-matched plastic side skirts are unlikely to be as hardy as a Wrangler's rock-sliders should things go awry, also.
With that said, the Jeep handled this terrain far better than its soft-roading rivals would – the ground clearance alone being a big part of that, even if it's not as much as a true off-roader might offer. There's good traction on gravel tracks, low-range gearing and plenty of low-down torque which is what really matters for serious off-roading, and a vast array of gadgets to make life easier as well.
As is customary for modern Jeeps, there's a read-out for just about everything you could need to know: pitch and roll, the angle of the wheels, accessory gauges for just about everything, and even an optional heat-sensing Night Vision camera for avoiding roos and deer during any nighttime adventures. You can also activate its front-facing and 360-degree cameras in case you're unsure of just how tricky the track looks immediately ahead of you.
Now, through a couple of muddy ruts and on faster gravel tracks, the Grand Cherokee 4xe handled itself fine, but there's no denying you couldn't pit this against the sort of terrain you would a Wrangler or Gladiator with their live axles and short front and rear overhangs. Likewise, it may deliver a solid array of luxurious features, and it might be a good-looker as well, but it's still going to be a bit out of place amongst the BMWs and Mercs at the country club.
So, it's unlike any other Jeep we've seen before – but so was the previous-generation Grand Cherokee Trackhawk. This vehicle might not scream Jeep right at you the way the boxier ones do, but it does still offer a relatively unique combination amongst the company it keeps.
You could argue there's a bit of an identity crisis at hand as a result, but it's a pretty simple verdict for me. By the time I'd looped back home through the Adelaide Hills, the car was covered in dust and dirt, but my hands were toasty and my back loosened up thanks to the deep tissue massage. Why not get you a car that can do both?
2024 Jeep Grand Cherokee Summit Reserve 4xe
Price (MSRP): AUD$129,950 // As Tested: AUD$137,200
Engine: 2.0-litre four-cylinder turbo petrol + electric motor, 17.3kWh lithium-ion battery
Transmission: 8-speed automatic
Drivetrain: Full-time 4x4, dual-range
Power: 280kW // 381PS @ 5250rpm
Torque: 637Nm // 470lb-ft @ 3000rpm
Weight: 2536kg (tare)
Economy: 3.2 L/100km (claimed)
