Reports on a Hellcat-powered Jeep Grand Cherokee have been around since last year, when the automaker gave its US dealers a preview of the potent SUV during a meeting in Las Vegas.
Even though the saying, ‘What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas’, doesn’t apply here, we haven’t seen any leaked official material. Nevertheless, it seems that testing might have begun.
Captured on video by an enthusiast cruising the streets of Detroit, this mysterious prototype has its front end covered, but its big brakes that seem to come from SRT’s Hellcat models are a giveaway, and so is the supercharger sound that is mentioned by the man holding the camera.
If there’s 6.2-liter V8 mill sourced from the Challenger and Charger Hellcats lurking under the hood, then it will come with a massive 707 horsepower and 650 pound-feet (880 Nm) of torque. The impressive lump is believed to make the Grand Cherokee the fastest accelerating SUV the world has ever seen, allowing it to cover the zero to sixty miles per hour (96 km/h) sprint in about 3.5 seconds.
There is no official date for when the super-hot SUV, which could use the Trackhawk suffix, will go on sale, but previous reports pointed towards mid-2017.