DESPITE its all-American pretensions the biggest bruiser Jeep sells in Britain speaks to you with a curiously continental inflection.
Peel away the glitzy and defiantly stateside bodywork and the latest version of the company's Grand Cherokee has more than a few components any Mercedes mechanic will easily clock; yep, underneath it's got an awful lot in common with the latest M-Class off-roader. Yet, for better and for worse, the Americans have managed to make it feel reassuringly different.
The way the diesel-propelled 3.0 litre V6 Overland drives is that it doesn't pretend to be a low-slung sports car, and it's defiantly off-roader in the way it rolls and lurches if you really press on when you're driving. If you want revolutionary handling from something so high-riding, look elsewhere.
Yet I can forgive it that because the Grand Cherokee was clearly designed for conquering territories a tad tougher than Tesco's car parks, something immediately obvious when you glance at the centre console. On say, a BMW X3 you're met with a slick and sophisticated iDrive computer system, but the Jeep instead offers you a big, chunky switch, which lets you choose whether to put it up against snow, mud, sand or the M58. It's touches like this that let you know it's a proper mudplugger more than capable of coming out to play in the rough stuff.
You'll also either love or loathe its interior which seems to modelled more on the world of luxury yachts than motoring. With smoked black wood and lightest of beige leather trimmings it is a very American sort of place to be, but it keeps up the Stateside feel by being wonderfully comfortable and more spacious than any of the rivals I've driven.
At a whisker under £45,000 it isn't the cheapest 4x4 you're likely to come across, but it has a commanding driving position and a sense of imperiousness thrown in as standard, alongside all manner of gadgets and gizmos.
The Grand Cherokee isn't the best off-roader I've driven but perplexingly it is my favourite, which has got more to do with its indomitable spirit than any ability to tick the boxes.
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