What's Wrong With This Picture: Yeah, It's Got A Hemi Edition
Jeep’s Grand Cherokee has earned consistently positive reviews by maintaining its off-road capability and nailing one of the few untouched crossover market positions between mass-market minivan replacements and high-end luxury SUVs. Does that mean the Dodge version, which will bear the Durango nameplate, will be similarly received? Not necessarily. Expected to be less off-road capable than its Jeep cousin, the Durango will compete head-to-head with the new Ford Explorer, GM’s Lambda juggernaut, and a pack of established mid-large CUV competitors. The Durango will also be the toughest trial yet for the tortured relationship between Dodge and the ostensibly spun-off Ram brand, as the Durango has traditionally resembled the Ram off which it used to be based (need proof? Dodge is calling the Durango a “three-row performance SUV”). On the positive side of the Durango’s balance sheet: an optional Hemi engine. Sure, the Grand Cherokee offers that too, but the Jeep brand doesn’t get to call it a Hemi. Now that’s what you call differentiation!
More by Edward Niedermeyer
Latest Car Reviews
Read moreLatest Product Reviews
Read moreRecent Comments
- Ajla If I was Ford I would just troll Stellantis at all times.
- Ronin It's one thing to stay tried and true to loyal past customers; you'll ensure a stream of revenue from your installed base- maybe every several years or so.It's another to attract net-new customers, who are dazzled by so many other attractive offerings that have more cargo capacity than that high-floored 4-Runner bed, and are not so scrunched in scrunchy front seats.Like with the FJ Cruiser: don't bother to update it, thereby saving money while explaining customers like it that way, all the way into oblivion. Not recognizing some customers like to actually have right rear visibility in their SUVs.
- MaintenanceCosts It's not a Benz or a Jag / it's a 5-0 with a rag /And I don't wanna brag / but I could never be stag
- 3-On-The-Tree Son has a 2016 Mustang GT 5.0 and I have a 2009 C6 Corvette LS3 6spd. And on paper they are pretty close.
- 3-On-The-Tree Same as the Land Cruiser, emissions. I have a 1985 FJ60 Land Cruiser and it’s a beast off-roading.
Comments
Join the conversation
Ay least the JGC and the Durango will have more differtiation than Traverse/Acadia/Enclave.
There are four four-letter words keeping Chrysler alive today: 1. Jeep 2. Hemi 3. Vans 4. Fiat Maybe this new Durango entry will help a bit.