This week, Jeep gave its US dealers a sneak peak at the Grand Cherokee Track Hawk, during their annual dealership meeting in Las Vegas.
We found out that, when the Track Hawk was shown to Fiat-Chrysler dealers, they were told that the 6.2 liter V8-powered Jeep would be capable of hitting 60 mph (96 km/h) in just 3.5 seconds. Round that out to 62 mph (100 km/h) and you would probably still get there in slightly under 4 seconds, which is absolutely amazing! Who would have thought that we could be driving a 3-second SUV any time soon?
Also, having 707 HP makes this the world’s most powerful SUV by quite a large margin. Apparently, Jeep isn’t interested in taking the fight to the X5 M, GLE 63 AMG, Cayenne Turbo and so on, the old fashioned way. They’re just throwing all the horsepower they can into the Grand Cherokee and making sure that it can out-accelerate any of its European rivals in a straight line.
Let’s look at some 0-62 mph (100km/h) numbers:
– Porsche Cayenne Turbo S: 4.1 sec
– BMW X5 M: 4.2 sec
– GLE 63 AMG: 4.2 sec
By the way, that report from two months ago stating that the Trackhawk will accelerate to 60 mph (96km/h) in less than 3 seconds was evidently wrong. Now that I think about it, a 2-second Jeep does sound kind of ridiculous.
The best part about this endeavor is that rival manufacturers won’t be able to afford doing nothing. Which means that future SUV generations could become much more powerful in order to keep up with these “lunatics”.
Oh, and just wait until the Trackhawk goes drag racing! I’m actually pretty sure that it will jump ahead of the Challenger Hellcat if they do a standing start, thanks to its all-wheel drive system.
So, are you excited about a 3-second Jeep? Perhaps it would be wise to curb our enthusiasm and wait until we see just how well the Grand Cherokee Trackhawk can put all of that power down, especially transmission-wise.
Note: 2015 Grand Cherokee SRT pictured
Story references: Autonews
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