But you do get alot of bang for your buck. Really.
If someone gave you a list of the most powerful production cars on sale today, you likely wouldn’t find many surprises. You’ll spot several Italian marques, some from Germany, and perhaps even a couple of American brands. But you wouldn’t guess any of them to be an SUV.
But, Jeep has delivered the most powerful SUV on sale today in the form of the Grand Cherokee Trackhawk, one of the most hotly-anticipated models of the year, with its rip-roaring V8 and ridiculous performance numbers ready to take on the gruellling school run, or perhaps to just saunter around the business district.
With 522kW of power and 868Nm of torque from its supercharged 6.2-liter V8, the GC Trackhawk can rocket from rest to 100km/h in just 3.7-seconds, similar to what you’d expect to get from a sports car, though the Trackhawk will consume a claimed 16.8L/100km as it does so. Yikes.
You will at least be surrounded by plush trappings while the Trackhawk devours all that fuel, with Nappa leather, carbon fibre, and chrome lashed about the cabin. The front seats are heated and cooled, while the Trackhawk claims to have a flat-bottomed steering wheel with paddle shifters. We say it “claims to” because judging by the photos, so little of it is flat that it barely warrants being called “flat-bottomed.”
Some 200-units have been demanded ahead f launch, with the pre-launch allocation of 62 units (ahem, like the 6.2-litre under the bonnet) totally sold out.
Standard features on the Grand Cherokee Trackhawk include:
- QuadraTrac on-demand all-wheel drive system.
- Launch control.
- High-performance engine cooling.
- Unique SRT instrument cluster.
- Active suspension.
- Forward collision warning.
- Lane departure warning.
- Blind spot monitoring.
- Rear cross-traffic alert.
- Semi-autonomous parking.
- Tyre pressure monitoring.
- Active cruise control.
- Brembo brakes.
- Rear electronic limited-slip differential.
- DAB digital radio.
- 8.4-inch Uconnect infotainment screen.
- 19-speaker Harman/Kardon audio system.
The Jeep Grand Cherokee Trackhawk is on sale today at $134,900, and will be sold concurrently with the lesser-powered Grand Cherokee SRT, which might pack a larger Hemi V8 (extra 200cc), but puts out just 344kW/624Nm.
For more information on Jeep, check out our Showroom.
