Hello everyone and welcome, we are in the Jeep Grand Cherokee Trackhawk
They've taken the beast of an engine out of the Hellcat and they've transplanted it inside of a Jeep Grand Cherokee
6.2L V8, 707 hp
in a Jeep in an SUV. So hypothetical scenario you and a friend both have
$85,000 to kill, and you
Go to the Dodge dealership, and you go to the Jeep dealership, you know there's side by side
It's all FCA and so your friend
What decides they want a demon they buy themself a demon you buy yourself a Jeep Trackhawk both of the cars around
$85,000 assuming the dealer plays nice and lets you have it for MSRP, again it's a hypothetical situation
So then you both decide you're gonna go to a local airstrip
And see how fast your cars can go
So your friend gets in this demon you get in your Trackhawk you start out, you know you're lined up,
you're ready to go the
Flag drops I guess? I don't know somehow the race starts
Point is the demons going to have you even though this is all-wheel drive the demons going to launch
Much harder than you zero to 60 and 2.3 seconds in the demon versus zero to 60 in 3.5
Seconds in this Jeep Trackhawk, but that's not where the story ends as you
continue down that airstrip
Eventually you're going to reach 168 miles per hour and at that point the demon is done, It's finished
That's where it tops out and this Jeep an SUV continues to travel all the way to
180 miles per hour in a Jeep!
In a Jeep!
It's absurd that a sport utility vehicle is going to travel at 188 miles per hour
So why why is the demon only topping out in 168 when it has more horsepower?
Well, it's a small technical reason and that's because the tires that were developed specifically for the dodge demon these Nitto
drag radials that are basically as
Close to being and not street-legal as possible
They're D rated for their speed
So there are W rating for speed?
Which means they can only travel up to 168 miles per hour and as a result the dodge demon is electronically limited to?
168 miles per hour on the other hand this jeep has some 295 s. They're not some special crazy compound
specifically you know for the dodge demon to make that insane quarter-mile pass and so as a result it has a higher speed rating and
This is going to be probably
Aerodynamically limited to 180 miles per hour I don't know if you honestly want to go much faster than that in an SUV
Anyways, but that's what it goes to
Now the Dodge demon if you were to put different tires on it you can change the setting
And allow you know remove that limiter so that you can't exceed it
And the Dodge Hellcat wide-body actually has a top speed of 195 miles per hour and that's with 707 horsepower
Rather than 840 in the demon so in the demon you could probably hit 200 miles per hour assuming
You know you get the right tires for it
Now the reason they did that is because in order to have the maximum amount of longitudinal grip
with the Dodge
Demon, which they want for the quarter mile they went with this softer compound that wasn't rated quite as high for speed
And so Nitto came back to Dodge, and they said look if you want the tire to travel faster
We can do that
We can make a tire that will last higher speeds and hold up for these higher speeds, but if you want maximum longitudinal grip
168 miles per hours as fast as you're going and because the dodge demon was developed
You know to be the fastest in the quarter-mile passed 168 miles per hour doesn't matter. It's hitting
140 mile per hour trap speed and
So you know they were willing to make that sacrifice in top speed for the fact that you know you get better grip and it
Definitely shows I drove the Hellcat wide-body today, which has 305 s on it
And they do not have near the grip of the 315 Nittos on the dodge demon so much more grip in the dodge demon
Even with the 305's in the Hellcat wide-body it had no problem. You know 50 miles an hour you put your foot down
You're gonna just spin tires
You're not gonna actually hook up
And so I guess a little bit of a disappointment there in the fact that it seems like the wider tires on the Hellcat definitely
Help for handling. I'm not sure how much more grip you actually get out of it
I was having trouble putting the power down when I was driving it
But this Jeep does not have that problem because it's all wheel drive so let's go ahead and drop a few speeds
Get it into 2nd gear there, we'll put it in 3rd.
Oh man oh, man this thing is quick and let's go down to 2nd there and see what that's like
Yeah, so as you can tell
No problem putting the power down with the all-wheel-drive system and the all wheel drive system
And this is actually pretty cool one of the things they've done is they allowed to change that torque splint
Depending on what mode you're in so an automatic mode
It's going to put 40 percent to the front 60 percent to the rear
If you put it in snow mode of course you want even traction distribution
So it's a 50/50 split if you put it in tow mode
You might want a little bit more power up front
And so it gives you 60 at the front 40 in the rear so it's pretty dynamic
And how it can change it put it in sport mode
35% up front
65% in the back and then put it in track mode, and you've got 30% up front
70% in the back
So a very dynamic system able to you know adapt to whatever you need it for and it's cool that you can also you know
Change to a front torque bias rather than only a rear bias
But you know it's a neat system that actually allows for quite a different range of setups depending on what you're using it for
So how does the thing Drive?
Well they put wide tires on it 295s all the way around there's summer tires
And they've lowered this Jeep event versus the regular Grand Cherokee, but that said it's still an SUV
You know you don't forget that you're in an SUV you feel the heft
This thing's over 5,300 pounds and body roll yes definitely exists
It's certainly an SUV, but it is quick, and you know it can definitely handle it for what it is
It can definitely put the power down which is certainly appreciated. You know can it handle some tight corners
You're gonna have to battle that weight so ultimately you know it's not the most track capable vehicle out there
But as far as a track capable SUV yes very much, so
180 miles an hour, that's just insane that that's what you know
an SUV in the year
2017 can achieve, it's just wild what's happening with cars. They are getting so fast
We're in track mode
Oh goodness the acceleration definitely isn't going to get old let's
Let's just come to a stop. I'm not going to do launch control yet, but I will do just
Brake pedal stop
Oh
Man, actually it did have a little wheel slip there that was crazy, in first gear
I felt like this front was spinning a little bit, but again
This is in track mode, so it's only got 30% going to the front most of it going to the rear wow that was cool
And in first gear that the gearing is aggressive, and so you know you match that with so much torque so much power and the
Acceleration is unreal. Oh yeah, so we do have it looks like traction control is on
It's on track mode, so it limits it and it allows for a little bit of slip
And I definitely did notice that coming out
From a dig just in first gear in second gear and beyond it seemed to hold just fine now
But a little bit of traction loss, which is crazy all wheel drive this thing weighs 5300 lbs
And it's still breaking some tires a little bit loose
You know in the dry Sun that's pretty incredible
It kind of speaks to how much torque is really just getting put to the ground
Or not put to the ground because it's spinning no, but seriously. It's it's a lot
You know and one of the things I really like about the Hellcat charger
Is that has very much so a split personality, so you can just cruise around in it?
It's a nice comfortable sedan large sedan
And then you put your foot down and all of a sudden things get really violent and it's the same case with this which is
Cool that they've kind of preserved. I mean this thing still just feels like a Jeep Grand Cherokee
Which is a nice place to be and then you put your foot down,
And all of a sudden it's a monster! Oh my goodness! Wow!
Just does not let up
Wow!
Have I said wow enough? But yeah, it's comfortable
You know it floats around a little bit it actually feels pretty planted when you're really going for it
But you know like I was saying it's soft it has body roll, so you get that SUV feel it's comfortable
It's quiet in here, It's a nice environment to be and I also really like about these engines is that if you give them
A small amount of throttle not you know anything past 50%, but if you give it a little bit of a throttle
You can really hear
That supercharger, whine and I love that sound
Just a nice
partial throttle sound if you're cruising it gets nice and quiet in here if you go a partial throttle you get that cool
supercharger whine and if you put down
Scare the **** out of everybody
I mean throttle is great it truly is great. It's got the perfect response, It's supercharged, It's the big v8,
You're not lacking in throttle response and so the throttle pedal
Application is fantastic
I really like it. The brake pedal on the other hand I feel like it's pretty light and the first decent amount of travel
It it's just real soft, and you feel like you're in this big SUV
You might need a compensate and brake a little bit harder with a real light pedal effort
You actually get quite a bit of braking so to me. It doesn't necessarily feel fitting for the vehicle. It's easy to drive
It's comfortable to drive and then once you really get in there
You know it starts to become more pressure sensitive rather than travel sensitive as far as how much braking you get
But I feel like for the size of the vehicle it feels light like a light amount of pressure required the steering
Yeah, it's an SUV. I mean you don't get that sports car feeling where it feels super direct and super precise
I don't have complaints about it. It's just there's nothing really fantastic about it. It's soft. You know
There's not a whole lot of feedback coming through to you
I guess these are complaints, so I do have complaints about the steering, but it's just
often so often, this is just the battle of an SUV
You've got a high center of gravity you have a vehicle that doesn't want to change directions
Quickly and so when you have these turn-ins it
Reacts after you want it to react and so the steering feels like it's not perfectly connected
And that's you know it's more of a case of the fact that this thing's super heavy not that the steering design is
Terrible so I'm okay with it
It's it's an SUV and it drives like a comfortable SUV when you want it to well
I have greatly enjoyed driving this vehicle
This is one of the contenders in the automotive video associations performance SUV of the year
That I'm getting to try out along with we also have a category of performance Car of the Year
So there'll be different videos related to that
I'll include some links in the video description so you can find out more about this automotive video Association
Thank you all for watching if you have any questions or comments feel free to leave them below!