Only the four letters - J, two E's, and a P - and the grille design tell you that the black Jeep is a Jeep. But they didn't just slap any name on this Jeep. It's a Cherokee. In fact, both Jeeps are Cherokees - the red one a 1997-2001 model, the black one the 2014 that launches this fall. The red Jeep was a true Jeep, with formidable off road capability built right into the design and a timeless, macho look. The new Cherokee should more aptly be called the What The Heck, as those three words popped immediately into my mind when I first saw the 2014 Cherokee.
So what's wrong with this new "Cherokee"?
1 - It's based on a Dodge Dart platform. Not the cool Dart with the 440 Six Pack from the '60s and '70s, oh no. The 2013 Dart, which should more aptly be called the Neon 2.0. That's a small car with generic styling, and it's not even a truly American car - it is derived from the Alfa Romeo Giulietta, an Italian vehicle....
2 - ...which means that this new Jeep isn't even fully American. Jeeps have been a fixture of Americana for decades. True, the 2005-2010 Grand Cherokee was developed with some Mercedes-Benz technology, but at least Mercedes-Benz has been selling vehicles in America for as long as Jeep has, and even builds and develops some of its vehicles here. Plus, the underlying platform for that Grand Cherokee was still 100% Jeep.
3 - It's a crossover. In 2006, Jeep introduced two crossovers that were nothing like the traditional Jeep trio of the past twenty years - the Cherokee/Liberty, Wrangler, and Grand Cherokee. They gave them new names - Patriot and Compass. They weren't "true" Jeeps, and weren't named as such. This new "Cherokee" takes the Cherokee name and applies it to something that's nothing like a Cherokee. That's like calling a Ford Fusion a Ford F-150. True, the Fusion and F-150 are both fine vehicles, but wouldn't it be utterly silly to slap a truck name on a car?
One side note: The Grand Cherokee always has been a unibody, but it uses a special type of unibody and is constructed like a traditional SUV. It has always had more "on road" pretensions than the Cherokee, which was marketed more as a vehicle with strong off road capabilities.
4 - The Liberty. In the early to mid 2000s, Jeep fans threw a fit about the Liberty. The Liberty did look a bit on the soft side - but it had the same body on frame construction the Cherokee did.
I'm sure the new Cherokee is an all right vehicle, but it needs a new name. This does not remind me of a Cherokee at all.
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