2014 Jeep Grand Cherokee Summit on 2040-cars

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Watch this 840-hp Jeep Grand Cherokee SRT8 walk away from GT-Rs and M3s

This last-generation Jeep Grand Cherokee SRT8 does things that SUVs just shouldn't be able to do, like win drag races against tuned Nissan GT-R and BMW M3 coupes. Granted, the owner isn't coming into this fight with a stock Jeep – far from it. In addition to twin turbos whistling away, he says the engine is a 449-cubic-inch V8, which is nearly 7.4 liters of displacement. As it runs here, the driver claims that the turbos are pumping out around 14 psi of boost to give an estimated 840 horsepower. What's more, he further maintains the powertrain could reach around 1,200 hp with things fully cranked up. Even somewhat dialed back, this Jeep is ready to take on a breadth of formidable challengers, including a couple of Chevrolet Corvette models and a Lamborghini Aventador. Check out the video to see how this menacing Grand Cherokee fares in a day at the races.

Watch this Jeep Willys return to its birthplace after 70 years

Earlier this month, a very significant Jeep was celebrated at the Toledo North Assembly plant. No, it wasn't the upcoming reincarnation of the Jeep Cherokee, but instead it was a 1943 Willys MB that visited the Toledo grounds where it had been built exactly 70 years ago to the day.
Of course, the actual building where the MBs rolled off the assembly line before heading to Europe for World War II no longer exists, but that didn't stop Italian owner Vittorio Argento from having the vehicle shipped to the US to make its trek back to its birth place. According to Chrysler, Argento's MB is still 95-percent original and it drove 1,000 miles from New Jersey to Toledo.
The whole adventure was chronicled on a blog aptly named A Jeep Comes Home. Scroll down for a brief video from Chrysler and for some photos of the Toledo visit and be sure to read more at Argento's blog.

Jeep Cherokee sales rival Wrangler after two months

In our First Drive article on the 2014 Jeep Cherokee we said, "our informal and thoroughly unscientific opinion is they're going to sell tons of them. Why? Because it is very good." So far, it appears the public concurs. Of course, it's very early - the new compact utility has logged just one month of confirmed sales, but Larry Vellequette at Automotive News says dealers have told him that the second month of sales will be even better, a message that mirrors what we've heard from company execs.
In its first, severely truncated month on sale, the Cherokee sold 579 units. With all of November to play with, though, dealers moved 10,169 of them - compared to 11,753 Wranglers and 14,798 Grand Cherokees. That helped propel Jeep to a 30-percent year-on-year improvement for the month, Chrysler Group to a 16-percent improvement and the group's 44th consecutive month of sales growth, exceeding analyst expectations in posting its best November numbers since 2007.
If it can just keep replicating the its first month of sales, the finalist in North American Truck of the Year voting will smoke the trade done by the outgoing Liberty, which didn't break 7,900 units in a month in the last four years of its life (and normally didn't get close to even that). In March this year, Chrysler said it wants to build 250,000 Cherokees in its Toledo assembly plant for global sales. It's early yet, but with second-month sales quoted as being as "strong as death," the bookies might be resetting the odds.