Re: Jeep Commander...did I miss something?

[Rhett Butler <amc.inline.six@xxxxxxxxx>]

DCX has acknowledged the XJ influence in this new model. But it's an entirely different animal than the XJ. It's larger than a Grand Cherokee and seats seven.

I'm not wild about the 3.7 V6 being the base engine, or that DCX is phasing out the 
4.0 I6. But we'll see if the new Commander is a good product in its own right.

On 9/14/05, John W Rosa <JohnRosa@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx > wrote:

Umm....for a while now, I've noticed this cool-looking Jeep
sitting pretty in the latest Missy Elliot music video...
wondered if it was a blinged-up later, pre-Liberty Cherokee.

Now I happen on the Jeep website to find...it's the new
'Commander'...and I use the term 'new' very lightly.

I thought AMC was the great recycler, but I'll be damned
if this 'new' Commander isn't the spitting image of the XJ,
given a facelift and renamed. Everywhere I look, I see
Cherokee....not that there's anything wrong with that. But
perhaps I'm just irked that they didn't call it what it
plainly seems to be...a new incarnation of the Cherokee, not
some 'new' model.

Am I treating it too superficially?? Sure, it's got 5 years
more advancements in there... But that's a Cherokee, damn it,
and in the minds of the more-cash-than-sense public, there is
not enough stylistic difference from the 2001 XJ to warrant
many folks from bothering to trade-up. They're gonna want the
style to scream 'all-new', not 'there's the Cherokee again'.
I happen to like the XJ, so the new look is fine by me...
but then, I ain't shopping for a new SUV... so my view means
squat. The new-SUV shopper is gonna walk right past this thing,
thinking it's a 2001 XJ. I almost did.

John