Is Jeep Compass Trailhawk The SUV You Need?

The Jeep Compass Trailhawk is an extreme off-roader – but is it the SUV you need?

- Pablo Chaterji

“Wait, what do you want me to do again?” I thought that was a pretty appropriate question, given that a rugged man in a sun hat had just asked me to essentially hurl the Jeep Compass Trailhawk I was driving off a cliff. He looked at me as though I was a little slow on the uptake. “Easy. Just point the nose of the Jeep down that slope, slot the wheels between the ridges you see, keep the steering wheel straight and use the brakes to modulate your descent.” All this sounded simple, no doubt, but the ‘slope’ he was referring to was so steep that I couldn’t see the bottom of it when I drove the Compass close to its edge. My brain was saying “Look, this is a Jeep, it’s the kind of thing it does for fun on Monday”; my family jewels, on the other hand, asked “Are you out of your fucking mind?” With a quick gulp of air, I gingerly modulated the throttle to move the car down the slope, and then let gravity do its thing — which it did rather enthusiastically. The Compass began hurtling downwards at an alarming pace, and then I remembered the thing called the brake pedal — a hefty mash of it slowed me down, and a subsequent dab-and-release technique took me slip-sliding to the bottom, where I discovered that I hadn’t breathed for the few seconds that the manoeuvre had taken. Another gulp of air, a settling of the nerves and I was convinced – the Trailhawk was a mountain goat masquerading as a car.