News: Detroit Show roundup... in 5 words or fewer...

Look, we're all leading such busy lives now and, frankly, the Detroit Motor Show (or North American Interational Auto Show, to give it its full and correct name) is massive. If we were to give you the full low-down on every car there, we'd be here a month. We've all got better things to do. So, to keep things brief, here's our run down of the Detroit highlights. In five words or fewer...

Jeep Grand Cherokee facelift:

Our favourite Jeep, now better.

Kia Cadenza.

Kia makes a Camry. Nice.

Lexus IS.

No diesel, just hybrid. Shame?

Honda NSX concept.

Closer to reality now. Awesome.

BMW M6 Gran Coupe.

So much want, it hurts.

Chrysler 300C Motown edition.

Chrome wheels kick-ass, right?

Cadillac ELR.

Electric Caddy, basically a Volt.

Chevrolet Corvette Stingray C7

Essentially, show-stopping. 'Nuff said.

Ford Atlas concept.

Utterly massive. Not coming here.

Honda Urban SUV concept.

Jazz-based Yeti rival. Slick.

Hyundai HCD-14 Concept.

Korean limo in desirability shock.

Mercedes-Benz CLA.

Still want that C-Class, pal?

Nissan Resonance Concept.

Basically, it's the next Murano.

Ford Focus ST Shelby.

No extra power, bit vulgar.

Tesla Model X

Electric, gullwing doors, simply stunning.

Toyota Corolla Furia concept.

New Corolla. Had you guessed?

Volkswagen CrossBlue SUV concept.

Underneath, it's a Golf. Honestly.

Don't forget to check back with us in a few week's time when we'll be summing up the Geneva Motor Show entirely in mime...

Road Test: Jeep Wrangler Sahara Unlimited

Price as tested: €38,000 (approx)

+ Fabulously rugged, more practical and refined than you’d think, so cool
– Boot’s a bit small. emissions a bit high
= Quite simply, the coolest car we’ve driven all year

If I tell you that the Jeep Wrangler turns out to be a bit of a surprise, would you be surprised? You might be, especially if you’re expecting some thundering, lumbering heap of Detroit iron, bludgeoning all in its path with a war-mongering “Yeee-haw!” and a distinct lack of Euro-style refinement.

Because while the Wrangler can trace its lineage directly back to the original 1941 Willys-Overland General Purpose 1/4 Ton Truck (GP, or Jeep for short), the reality is that the resemblance lies mostly in the styling and marketing departments.

So, while there is a seven-bar grille, round headlights and a pervading sense of squareness, there are also sophisticated Panhard linkages and coil springs in the suspension, there are comfy, heated leather seats in the cabin and there is even a Bluetooth phone connection. Disappointed that there’s not hand-cranked Bakelite phone in the back to put you in touch with brigade HQ? Yes, a little but that’s the way of the modern world.

The Wrangler’s only real rival, in both the heritage and off-road stakes, is the Land Rover Defender. But while you would, happily, make excuses for the Defender’s crudity, discomfort and rampant thirst, all because it looks so cool, the rather nice thing is that the Jeep simply doesn’t ask that much of you.

Haul yourself up into the cabin and you’re presented with a simple, workmanlike cabin. There are no soft-touch plastics, and more consideration seems to have been given to making its hose-out-proof than slush-moulded, but there’s a sense of purpose, a sense of rightness and, just as importantly, a sense of decent build quality. The seats, as we’ve mention, are comfy (and they warm your bum, in Sahara spec) and the steering wheel adjusts to help you find a comfy driving position.

Fire up the 2.8-litre CRD diesel engine and, yes, it’s noisy and grumbly, but once it warms through it’s not too bad. It’ll propel the Wrangler to 100kmh in an entirely reasonable 11.1secs, return a claimed (and believable in our experience) 7.4-litres per 100km on the  combined cycle and emits, in four-door unlimited guise, 194g/km of Co2. You can drop that to 187g/km (and get a €630 road tax bill) if you downsize to the less practical three-door Wrangler Sport.

The long, wand-like gear lever makes you think that it’ll have the shift accuracy of a drunk teenager on Valentine’s night, but actually, as long as you don’t rush it, there’s quite a pleasant gearshift to be had, in a moving-big-bits-of-metal-around steampunk kind of way.

Rolling refinement in the Wrangler is surprisingly good. Clearly, with a (removable, if you have a hoist or enough tall friends) plastic roof, big wheels and a very upright shape, wind and tyre noise are prevalent, but the engine shuts up quite nicely in a sixth gear cruise, and the standard fit stereo is man enough for the job.

Long motorway runs? Just fine actually. Your ears will ring a little at the end, but other than that, the Wrangler takes long hauls in its stride. Actually, in town is its Achilles Heel. It’s a big car, bigger than you think at first, with a broad turning circle, so tight car parks are a bit of a nightmare. With practice, it’s fine, but some parking sensors would be helpful.

While we’re criticising, the boot’s too small. 498-litres sound big, but it’s oddly shaped to cover the fuel tank hump, and there’s no luggage cover, so everything’s on show through the vulnerable, lift up flap that makes up the rear window. Don’t plan on leaving valuables in your Wrangler.

Honestly though, who cares? Get out on the open road and the Wrangler handles with surprising (there’s that word again) aplomb. Yes, there’s slack in the steering and apparently wood in the suspension, but it’s fundamentally well behaved and won’t do anything bad.

Get off the open road and into open country and, well, this vehicle is Trail Rated, meaning it will climb up Jeep’s fearsome Rubicon Trail in Utah, a mountain pass littered with trees, escarpments, dust, dirt, boulders and the occasional bear. Yank the hefty lever back to select four wheel drive, low range (the Wrangler’s best left in two wheel drive on tarmac to avoid transmission wind up) and there is probably no decently solid surface that you cannot traverse. And whether this winter brings snow, floods or both, prepare to be called on by stranded friends.

If you haven’t already guessed it, we loved the Wrangler. Compared in saloon car terms to its SUV rivals, it’s nowhere. But there is such a thing as fitness for purpose, and the Wrangler is not only the origin of the species, but it could pummel any SUV into the dirt when the going gets tough, and isn’t so far behind them in terms of everyday driving that they could relax. It’s the anti-Evoque, and for that, and for being four-square and dependable in a world slowly but surely going mad, we salute it.


Facts & Figures

Jeep Wrangler Unlimited Sahara
Price as tested: €38,000 (approx)
Range price: TBC
Capacity: 2,776cc
Power: 200bhp
Torque: 410Nm
Top speed: 172kmh
0-100kmh: 11.1sec
Economy: 7.4l-100km (38.1mpg)
CO2 emissions: 194g/km
VRT Band: F. €1,050 road tax
Euro NCAP rating: Not yet tested

Road Test: Jeep Grand Cherokee 3.0 CRD Limited

Price as tested: €54,995

+ Handsome looks, comfy, decent chassis, good quality, excellent engine
– Some cheap trim, body rolls a lot
= One of the most pleasant surprises of the year


Managing a brand is tricky. Every new product has to be good, slightly better than its predecessors, yet not so much that owners of the old one feel gypped. Innovation is everything yet you can’t get too avant-garde, or your risk alienating the technophobes.

And even the best get it wrong. Coca-Cola royally stuffed it up in the early eighties with New Coke. Most of you probably don’t remember it and that’s a good thing. It was terrible, and it nearly killed the company. Likewise, Apple, the most valuable company in the world right now, once (or twice) got it spectacularly wrong. Neither the Newton Message Pad nor the Pippin games console set the world alight. How did these companies recover from such failures? By getting back to what they’re best at and digging deep to create some truly great products.

Which brings us nicely to the Jeep Grand Cherokee. When Jeep first began its trans-Atlantic foray in the early nineties (well, the first since 1945 at any rate), the Grand Cherokee was the star of the show. Big, bluffly handsome and very American in its value for money, it nevertheless had a very real tilt at the vaunted Range Rover’s luxury SUV crown. All that let it down was the lack of a decent diesel engine.

Come the 2005 model and all the omens looked great. A new body and chassis, and a new diesel engine from then owners of Chrysler, Mercedes-Benz. It should have been brilliant. It was actually awful. The engine was fine but the gimpy styling wasn’t, nor was the crummy, cramped cabin and the ride and handling, with those big, hefty live axles, was utterly dreadful. Never mind the Range Rover, launched a year after the Land Rover Discovery III, the Grand Cherokee should have been a convincing rival to the Disco but instead struggled to even be an also-ran.

Combine that with a pretty poor Cherokee and an utterly dreadful double-whammy of 1st-gen Compass and Patriot and you have a brand rattling and creaking under the strain of some pretty serious duds.

But thankfully, the Jeep brand is a strong one and like Coke and Apple, it regrouped, delved deep and started to do things better. Should we expect any less from the only car brand ever to be name checked as a war-winner by none other than Brig. General Dwight D. Eisenhower? Resilience is in the blood.

As with the 2002 Range Rover, the new Jeep Grand Cherokee has been developed under the auspices of one car company and launched under another. In the Rangie’s case, it was developed and prototyped by BMW but Ford swept in the year before its launch to buy out Land Rover and so got the kudos for one of the most iconic SUVs of all time.

For the Grand Cherokee, work began while Jeep, owned by Chrysler, was indepedent, hived off from former owners Daimler-Benz and then under the control of investment fund Cerberus. So, there’s rather a lot of Mercedes DNA deep within the structure of the Grand Cherokee. In fact, beneath its all-American skin, it’s very much a Mercedes ML. And the biggest benefit of that is that the GC now does away with the awful live axles of old and switches instead to a much more car-like construction, with proper, modern, independent suspension with air springs.

The 241bhp, 550Nm 3.0-litre V6 diesel is a Merc job too, and goes about its business with remarkable refinement. It can grumble and moo a bit under heavy throttle openings, but that you suspect is more down to the old-school five-speed automatic gearbox, which simply doesn’t have the spread of ratios that’s required these days. A fix is on the way in late 2012, when the ZF-supplied 8-speed box comes on stream, so you can expect to see improvements in the current fuel consumption and Co2 figures of 8.3-litres per 100km and 218g/km. Still those are good enough for a near-enough 1,000km touring range from the 80-litre fuel tank and at least it’s not in the top band for road tax, so you’ll pay €1,050 a year while Land Rover drivers must pay top whack.

That switch to car-like construction and suspension has brought one of two massive improvements the new GC displays over its predecessor. While before, you had to put up with a truly dreadful ride quality and ponderous handling, now there is serenity. The ride can still occasionally be upset by sudden, sharp shocks, but that’s pretty much endemic to all vehicles that have air springs and big, heavy wheels and tyres. For the most part, the Grand Cherokee displays impressive composure, riding comfortably and dealing with swiftly taken corners with only slightly too much body roll. You can sharpen things up by flicking the Selec-Terrain system into Sport (there are also Snow, Auto, Mud and Sand modes) but that disables the ESP, something we were loathe to do given the recent weather conditions.

Which is a shame, as when you hustle it, the GC responds well. The steering is a touch long-winded, and there’s about as little road feel as you’d expect, but give it a challenging, twisty road, and it responds with aplomb. In fact, it treads an almost perfectly judged line between the two Land Rover products that most closely rival it. It’s not as smooth and refined as a Discovery, but it’s more responsive and rolls less, and it’s not as sharp and tall-hot-hatch-y as a Range Rover Sport but is much comfier and rides more calmly. If that sounds like an uncomfortable middle ground, it’s not. More of a finely judged compromise.

The cabin is a slightly less well judged compromise, but only in parts. Mostly, it’s very good with palpable quality, lots of space and very comfy seats. The boot, at 782-litres, is equally massive, but it does suffer from intrusion into the shape from what looks like the fuel tank. As for the rest of the cabin, a few small details let it down, such as main instruments, some lower-level plastics and a few switches that have no place on a €50K car (mind you, that’s a criticism you could level at rivals from Land Rover and Toyota too) and little touches detract from the overall sense of quality, like a gear shifter that looks and feels cheap and clunky and touch-screen controls for the infotainment system that appear to have been lifted from a Sega NES.

But these are but small quibbles, the stuff of a critic’s nit-picking. The overall effect of the Grand Cherokee is... charm. That’s a dangerous quality, because while charm can cover up a multitude of problems, it can never erase the fundamental failings of a poor vehicle. The last Grand Cherokee had charm, but it was still crap.

This one isn’t. The charm is still very much there, and it’s a blue-collar American charm that means that the GC feels less ostentatious (even net of the big chrome grille and wheels) than a Range Rover Sport. But it has only the mildest shortcomings to cover up for. Honestly, the Grand Cherokee has turned out to be one of the surprises of the year. A thoroughly well-sorted, dynamically capable and above all characterful and interesting vehicle, that’s well-priced in its segment and never less than welcoming and engaging as soon as you sit into the high-set driver’s seat. We just wish every new car could be so charming.


Facts & Figures

Jeep Grand Cherokee 3.0 CRD Limited
Price as tested: €54,995
Range price: TBC
Capacity: 2,987cc
Power: 241bhp
Torque: 550Nm
Top speed: 202kmh
0-100kmh: 8.2sec
Economy: 8.3l-100km (34.0mpg)
CO2 emissions: 218g/km
VRT Band: F. €1,050 road tax
Euro NCAP rating: Not yet tested

Road Test: Jeep Compass 2.2 CRD 4x4 Limited

Price as tested: TBA

In brief: So much better than the original Compass that it's not even in the same post code. Still falls  short of the best current rivals though.

There are some very lonely, distant spots in the world, but few are quite so distant or bereft of life as Hall Bay in northern Greenland. There is nothing here but snow, ice, rocks and lichen. It is notable only for  the presence of a grave, that of infamous American arctic explorer Charles Francis Hall who's death on an ill-fated expedition is still often conjectured to be murder at the hands of a disgruntled crew-mate.

And it was in the 1970s that a Jeep briefly visited here. It was part of a Danish expedition to investigate  arctic weather patterns, it stayed for a few days, motored happily around the sere, foreboding landscape and went home again leaving only the lichens and the lovely gravesite. I mention this because it would have been utterly inconceivable to Hall that people would one day travel easily over the landscape that cost him his life, and to remind you all that at its core, the Jeep brand is one capable of producing some exceptionally rugged vehicles.

Unfortunately, few if any of us actually require a truly rugged vehicle, much though we crave their outdoors-y image and usefulness, and it is this that has triggered the rise and rise of the SUV and crossover segment; cars that look vaguely related to Jeep's Willys-Bantam original but which have the creature comforts and running costs of a conventional family car.

In spite of having effecitvely created just such a car in the 1960s, the Jeep Grand Wagoneer, it took until 2007 for Jeep to finally catch up with the likes of the Nissan Qashqai, Ford Kuga and others and finally offer a truly compact, efficient vehicle with a Jeep badge. It was the Compass and it was awful. Wayward handling, truly terrible cabin quality and design, nasty brakes and a general and pervading air of cheapness put it bottom of pretty much every critic's list and made a lie of the generally-held assumption that there aren't any truly bad cars any more.

But now, under Fiat onwership, Jeep is having a go at making amends. In two years time, there will be an all-new Compass, with the chassis from an Alfa Giulietta and new, high-tech Fiat Powertrain engines. Until then, the Compass has had one of the most complete re-workings of any vehicle in recent times.

The front end is all new, with the gawky styling replaced by slick,Grand-Cherokee- style looks and inside, most (if not quite all) of the nasty plastics have been binned in favour of some decent soft-touch surfaces, a handsome new three-spoke steering wheel and some very comfy seats (trimmed in a rich feeling biscuit coloured leather on our Limited spec test car.

Gone too is the noisy and clattery VW-sourced 2.0-litre TDI engine and in its place is a sophisticated 2.2-litre 163bhp diesel engine from Mercedes which boasts a 6.6-litre per 100km combined fuel economy figure and, with four wheel drive, Co2 emissions of 172g/km. Not exceptional figures, it must be noted, but a step in the right direction.

It should probably be said here and now that the Compass has been transformed out of all recognition. Where before the handling felt truly dreadful, now it has an underlying feeling of assurance and balance, even if it's nowhere near as good to drive as, say, a Ford Kuga. The Mercedes engine brings with it decent power (a 0-100kmh sprint time of 10.6secs is OK) and improved refinement. I say improved because there is still quite a lot of clatter, and the occasional whistle and clank, at low speeds, but it does quieten down reasonably well on a longer run.

Over a busy test schedule when we managed to put more than 1,200km up on the car, we managed a decent fuel average of 7.0-litres per 100km, but found that the fuel gauge had an unnerving habit of plummeting towards the red quite suddenly when it wanted to. It's not an uneconomical car, but the last quarter of the tank does seem to disappear quite quickly.

It is quite comfortable though. The nice seats must be playing a big part in this, but the mostly well-sorted primary ride must also take a bow, even if it can be upset buy sharp, sudden ripples. There's a pleasingly long-legged, soft-kneed feeling about the way the Compass gets about.

It's deceptively spacious too. Look at the boot and the back seat and you assume that there's not a lot of room but actually you can fit a surprising amount of stuff and people in both. Certainly, the Compass lives up the Jeep's promises of being a practical vehicle.

What it's not is especially brilliant, and that's a fact that Jeep's suit-wearing types will tacitly admit to. It's a transitional car, they say, giving Jeep something halfway decent to sell while it awaits the arrival of an all-new Compass. In those terms, it's not bad then. Dynamically capable,in a basic sense, comfortable and sufficiently roomy for it to be considered for use as a family car.

Price will be an issue though. At the time of writing, Jeep Ireland had still not reached a final agreement with Jeep Europe's overlords in Turin on pricing. Apparently, Ireland wants to pitch the Compass as a circa €26,000 rival to the likes of the Nissan Qashqai and specced-up versions of the Skoda Yeti; a very sensible course of action. Jeep Europe though sees the Compass as being more of a premium model and wants a €30k+ price tag to put it up against the likes of the Land Rover Freelander. In which case, I think the Compass' case would be as dead as Charles Francis Hall in his grave on an icy Greenland shore peninsula.

At a Qashqai's price, you could pretty easily forgive the Compass' mild dynamic shortcomings and instead just enjoy its lengthy standard equipment list and the aura of its legendary badge. Above €30k though, it'll be out on far to fragile a limb,

Facts & Figures

Jeep Compass 2.2 CRD 4x4 Limited
Price as tested: €TBA
Price range: €TBA
Capacity: 2,143cc
Power: 163bhp
Torque: 320Nm
Top speed: 201kmh
0-100kmh: 10.6sec
Economy: 6.6l-100km (42.8mpg)
CO2 emissions: 172g/km
Road Tax Band: E €630
Euro NCAP rating: Not yet tested

Road Test: Jeep Grand Cherokee 5.7 V8 Hemi Overland

Price as tested: €POA.

In brief: Pointless? No, not quite. If you’ve got the wherewithal, it nicely straddles the gap between practical and sporting SUV.


I can confidently predict that no-one in Ireland is going to buy one of these. Not the new Jeep Grand Cherokee itself. Actually, I’d be very surprised if that’s not going to be at least moderately successful, in 3.0 CRD V6 diesel form. It’s handsome, relatively affordable and will be nigh-on peerless in the rough stuff, so what’s not to love?

No, I mean that this specific version, the 5.7-litre V8 Hemi (and yes, that’s petrol powered before you ask) will sell in single digits, if at all. Quite apart from the obvious Co2-related penalties, there’s the prospect of gargantuan fuel and insurance bills.

So why are we driving it? Well, for the simple reason that it’s there; Jeep offered us the chance, and it would be churlish not to find out what life is like on the other side of the diesel-philic fence.

Besides, there is rather more going on here than you might at first think, and perhaps that glib no-one will buy one assessment might be a touch to fast off the mark.

First off, this is our first chance to drive the new Grand Cherokee on Irish roads. Based on the same chassis as the current Mercedes-Benz M-Class, this is no hulking, gargantuan American behemoth. It’s big, certainly, but no more so than any Euro-friendly SUV, so you can leave your Chelsea tractor inhibitions at the door.

From the front, with the glowering headlights and bulging bodywork, it looks brilliant; menacing and Gotham-esque. Around the back, it’s a little less successful, looking like a cross between an old Grand Cherokee and a Kia Sorento. Never mind.

Inside, there’s a similar mix of styles. The vast sweep of the cliff-faced dash is covered in expensive looking leather and wood that doesn’t look like it’s been injected into a mould. The main dials are crisp and clear and almost everything you touch looks and feels expensive. Almost. It is let down by the garish faux-aluminium centre console, the switches for the HVAC controls and the clunky gearshifter. American cabin tastes still have not caught up with European quality levels, it seems. Still, it all feels pretty well bolted together, the seats are marvelously comfortable and there’s lounging space for a basketball team in the back.

Boot space doesn’t look great when first you see it (the floor is high set thanks to the massive full size spare stashed underneath) but the tape measure says that there’s 782-litres back there, which is pretty massive. 1,554-litres with the rear seats folded though it s a bit of a disappointment. A Ford Mondeo estate offers more room.

Mind you, you’ll need to watch the build quality. A rogue bit of panel fit meant the right rear door would only open a crack. A simple fix, and it was an early-build RHD car, but still, Jeep is going to have to try harder than that to shake off any lingering quality worries.

Now, let’s get to the good bit. The engine. A proper, massive, 5.7-litre God Of Thunder with Hemi heads and... wait, I can’t hear it...

The fact is that while we assume that every American car with a V8 sounds like a NASCAR race under the hood, the fact is that this is just a pretty normal engine option stateside. So instead of gurgling and woofling like a Hollywood sound effect, it is in fact whisper quiet until you give it the absolute beans, and then makes a crisp-edged snarl more akin to a BMW straight-six than a bent-eight slice of Detroit pig iron. This is a properly sophisticated engine, and with 352bhp and 520Nm of torque, it can push this big 2,382kg Jeep from 0-100kmh in a very respectable 8.7secs. Not as fast as the 3.0-litre diesel (8.2secs, amazingly) but still pretty rapid.

And while you might be expecting to need to be followed at all times by a tanker truck, allowing for necessary refueling every eight minutes or so, the Hemi confounds by being relatively frugal. We got an average of 15.8l/100km, or 17mpg. Hardly the stuff of a Prius, it’s true, but that was with a morning’s hard pedaling on backroads and across country. A more economy minded motorway run should see you easily beat Jeep’s claimed 14.1-litres per 100km combined cycle figure. To put that in perspective, my wife’s ancient, creaky Renault Laguna 1.8 estate gets around 21mpg on average...

Co2 emissions? Best not to ask? Well, no actually. 327g/km seems gargantuan, but thanks to the vagaries of the Irish tax system, you’ll pay exactly the same as someone whose car emits as little as 226g/km.

And it drives well too. OK, so it’s big, heavy and the steering is a bit vague, but you can still place the Grand Cherokee with confidence, and that air suspension system (standard on Overland models) soaks up the worst that Irish tarmac can throw at it. It’s a massive improvement on the wobbly, rough-riding live-axled last-gen Grand Cherokee. There’s a touch of float, and a hefty dose of initial body roll, but once that’s passed, the Grand settles down into a nice, comfortable cornering attitude. On motorways, it tracks straight and true and refinement is little short of excellent.

The Quadra-Drive II transmission (I love the way Americans name everything like this) which comes as standard on the Overland (regular Laredo models make do with a mere Quadra-Trac II system) includes a Land Rover-like selection system that can set the car up for Sport, Mud and Snow, Sand and Rock Climb modes. A quick blast on some muddy bits on the Curragh confirmed little more than that you’d have to be trying very hard to get a Grand Cherokee stuck. The air suspension can stretch up to give you more ground clearance and better approach and departure angles when off-roading, and crouches down on the motorway, or when in Sport mode, to improve the aerodynamics. Maximum towing weight, critical when you’re buying a car like this, is 3,500kg.

Does it make any sense? No. But then what car with a luxury cabin and the ability to go hoicking over mountains like a demented Edmund Hillary does? Being as having a large SUV is the height of silliness to begin with, why not go the whole hog and get yourself a Hemi?

Facts & Figures

Jeep Grand Cherokee 5.7 V8 Hemi Overland
Price as tested: €POA
Range price: TBA
Capacity: 5,654cc
Power: 352bhp
Torque: 520Nm
Top speed: 225kmh
0-100kmh: 8.7sec
Economy: 14.1l-100km (20.0mpg)
CO2 emissions: 327g/km
Road Tax Bad: G €2,400
Euro NCAP rating: Not yet tested.