TOMORROW'S SUV, YESTERDAY

The First Jeep Grand Cherokee Set Standards for Decades

- AARON GOLD

It’s been three decades since we first met the Jeep Grand Cherokee, and back then we had a strong suspicion we were looking at the future: a sport-ute with the off-road ability of a truck (for trucks is what most SUVs were) and the driving characteristics of a car.

Today we’re face to face with another Grand Cherokee, an 8,700-mile original from Stellantis’ heritage collection. We’re here to find out if we were right. Was the ZJ of the 1990s the SUV of the future?

We are immediately struck by irony: Today’s automakers try to make cars look like SUVs, but the Grand Cherokee is an SUV trying to look like a car. Although its hulking presence belies its diminutive size—today’s Honda HR-V casts a bigger shadow—the Grand Cherokee looks like it’s sucking in its gut to hide its mass. There’s no spare tire hanging off the tailgate; it’s hidden away in the cargo bay, where it eats up an unforgivably large chunk of space. There is precious little chrome, and in fact few adornments at all. Like most great car designs, the ZJ’s style is in its shape.

Opening the door reveals odd proportions: The lower half is short like a car door, while the window frame seems absurdly tall. We step up to get in, but unlike a modern SUV, we don’t drop down again, because the floor is as flat as a sheet of plywood and not much thicker. The chunky center console topping the tall transmission tunnel reminds us just how tightly the Grand Cherokee is wrapped around its machinery.