Jeep Grand Cherokee Wins Drive Car of the Year Best 4WD Award

SYDNEY – Nov 28, 2011: The all-new Jeep Grand Cherokee Laredo, 3.0 litre turbo diesel V6, has won the prestigious Drive Car of the Year, Best 4WD award for 2011, claiming victory over defending champion, the Land Rover Discovery 4 SE.

The torquey, fuel-efficient diesel Grand Cherokee was particularly noted for its unbeatable value, quiet and refined on-road drive performance and world-class off-road capability. It was also noted by judges that in a market where safety and rear vision capabilities are increasingly seen as compulsory, (by SUV driving families with small children), the feature-packed Grand Cherokee was simply unbeatable, offering reverse cameras among other safety and security features as standard across all models.

Chrysler Australia’s Managing Director, Clyde Campbell said today that the award was a huge honour and another great step for the Grand Cherokee success story.

“We are enormously proud of the Grand Cherokee and delighted to receive this prestigious award, further cementing our position as Australia’s number one selling luxury SUV. We genuinely believe this vehicle is the best 4WD on – and off – the road so we’re thrilled to be recognised by the expert judges at Drive.”

Built by VM Motori and developed together with Fiat Powertrain, a company of Fiat S.p.a., the new 3.0-litre turbo diesel engine produces 177 kW at 4,000 rpm with 550 Nm of torque at 1,800-2,800 rpm. This translates to 10 percent more power and eight percent more torque than the engine it replaces.

Even with its improved performance, fuel economy for the new 3.0-litre turbo diesel engine is 8.3 L/100km on the combined cycle, an improvement of 19 percent over the prior diesel engine. CO2 emissions (combined cycle) are also reduced by 20 percent, now at 218 g/km.

The Grand Cherokee is the best value premium SUV on the market, available in both petrol and diesel variants starting from $45,000.