Door handles, cubby holes, levers and tabs are tailor made in luxury sedan materials. The Jeep Commander's character is far divorced from the spartan ones of WW2. It was the anti-thesis of the dumbed down truck SUV. And the Discovery is what the original Land Rover should be today if only people stopped buying the old LR Defender. The Range Rover has the sophistication of a yacht. The departed Hummer H2 and H3 are off-duty pseudo-military look SUVs. The heavy duty looking details on the dashboard, door panels, ceiling and exterior are styled to look purpose built and rugged, dispensing with the crudeness associated with off-road 4x4. The Jeep Commander defined a new standard of rugged chic, sort of what one calls smart casual. On more familiar ground for me, that is triple digit speeds, it was like a rocket despite its solid big weight. superior abilities in traction, ground clearance, maneuverability, articulation and fording water. It was my first exposure to what Jeep means by being "Trail rated", i.e. Teamed with the Jeep all wheel drive system called, Quadra Trac II which takes care of boosting torque when crawling between steep boulders, we could match any of those monster off road machines that "paved" the way for us in the dry river banks called Wadis. This was Four years ago when the top line Commander was launched and it may well have been a first that a Jeep, instead of just being introduced exclusively on climbing dunes and rocky passes, was also dusting sideways on special rallye stages.
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Mind you I was not driving a specially prepared lightweight Dakar-Argentina Rallye machine. Mimicking WRC's Gronholm and Solberg in the Wadis and desert tracks of Oman, slipping and sliding at 180km/h through loose gravel special stages used by the FIA sanctioned Middle East World Rallye, I could relate to what the WRC legends feel the kick of the steering, the hunkering down of the sizable body, the weight transfers leaning into the corner, the lunge of the powerful engine. But if you think the only fun you could have with Jeeps is slow mo 1km/h speeds over boulders and rivers, find out what they do in the Middle East. Translation: they can go anywhere that a Wrangler can. But like all vehicles that carry the Jeep name, all, including the up-market models are trail rated. Locally, most off road and classic Jeep fans only know and respect the Wrangler.
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The Grand Cherokee, though quite large too, remains a 5-seater. In today's Jeep world, the Commander is the top of the line, the 7-seat rugged look luxo Jeep. have been a staple of the North American market. It is not their first luxury attempt as Jeep Cherokees, Comanches, Grand Cherokee, Wagoners etc. Afterall, the Commander is Jeep's foray into the trendy 7-seat market. Even long time fans of Jeeps, to whom only the Wrangler CJ-series matters, would take note. What to do? For maximum dinner table effect, say you drive a Jeep Commander. Until the DM went ballisticc and Isuzu, and later Fuso came in reconditioned form and controlled the market ever since. Add that its a Mercedes Benz, and those veteran Jeep fleet owners would tell you, the 180D Mercedes Benz engine was the default Jeepney engine, beating out Peugeot, Hanomag and Perkins for decades since the 60's. In this country, if you say you drive a diesel powered Jeep, you wouldn't raise any eyebrows.