Welcoming in a new calendar year, let me promptly deal with the sizeable updates designed to a popular, American-produced SUV — specially as it has been difficult to get chances to generate other new domestics, thanks to supply and manufacturing difficulties.

The 2022 Jeep Grand Cherokee, which I drove back again and forth from the Front Selection to Breckenridge two times for the duration of the Christmas weekend, certainly proved itself to be the correct type of issue for snow- and motor vehicle-packed winter highways.

It’s develop into incrementally additional subtle and unquestionably jumps up a handful of notches in conditions of know-how, with hundreds of passenger-helpful functions to dietary supplement its off-street ability.

I was mostly concerned about navigating deep, new snow and heinous Interstate 70 situations, and the fifth-generation Grand Cherokee did so with great self confidence — even on much less-than-stellar all-period tires.

I sampled an Overland edition, priced at $62,885 with a balanced pile of selections, most notably a 19-speaker, 950-watt McIntosh stereo system (audiophiles could identify that title from large-conclusion dwelling stereo devices) as properly as subtle gadgetry, like a night time eyesight digital camera in the electronic instrument panel, Nappa leather-based seats and massage seats up front.

Energy here was in the kind of an all-aluminum 3.6-liter V-6 offering 293 horsepower linked to an 8-speed automated transmission with subtle thumb-activated shifter paddles on the steering wheel. A 357-horsepower 5.7-liter V-8 is also accessible, which gives the Grand Cherokee as considerably as 7,200 kilos of towing capability. All 4×4 styles attribute front-axle disconnect, which lets the automobile to cruise mainly as a rear-wheel drive vehicle to help you save fuel.

The 2022 Jeep provides a handsome and rather stockier and blockier seem than preceding designs, with additional angular wheel arches, blacked-out window frames for a floating roof…