I wouldn't consider myself an environmentalist, I like fast petrol eating hypercars which churn out tonnes of carbon dioxide whilst delivering mind blowing power and noise at the same time. The good thing about supercars is that they are driven by a handful of people who have enough money to afford them. The rest of the world drive family cars which have smaller eco-friendly engines - its true, the next time you pop the bonnet of your vauxhall, ford or volkwagon have a look at the plastic writing on the engine cover; whether its an eco-tec, eco-trash, eco-cacola engine, its still eco. What really makes me go all green and environmental is when big tasteless cars have V8 engines fitted for no performance purpose whatsoever.
A few years back the sensible nations got together and came up with the Kyoto agreement which planned to cut CO2 levels and help cure climate change. A slight setback was America's refusal to sign it. This meant no matter how hard we insignificant Europeans try making small battery powered cars, the Americans would carry one driving their V8 Jeep Grand Cherokees. Over 1,5 million Jeep Grand Cherokees were sold in the nineties. One kilogram of Carbon dioxide is excreted into the atmosphere for every 3.5-ish km driven in a Grand Cherokee.
Enough said on the emissions rant, In my opinion and whilst being entirely honest, this car is as aesthetically pleasing as camel's excrement. At least camel excrement is a bit more aerodynamic than the Jeep and actually experiences off road terrain. The Grand Cherokee became the family car for the all American nuclear family; a bit like our Chelsea tractors but more hideous worse for the environment. In terms of technology Jeep tried to use some, and then failed; the displays are the typical green light LCD displays from an old VCR. Unfortunately for Jeep they all work, especially the MPG display. A normal pedal to the metal accelleration from 10 to 40mph suddenly dropped the MPG from 18 to 5! Yes, five miles per gallon at fourty miles per hour. The nineties model as tested has a petrol tank of 23 gallons. In plain English that means the car will run out of fuel in 4.6 miles on full throttle. The problem with going full throttle is that you dont experience any driving thrill; as a passenger I heard the feeble V8 belch out a couple of roars and then give up, it didn't feel as thrilling as the sound of a nice British Land Rover V8. The ride was wobbly to say the least but the bright yellow or "tan" seats cushioned a bit of the journey. I associate tan leather as the sort of complementary furnishing to a classic Alfa Romeo Spider or a Ferrari 250 California both of these cars came in red, not the colour grizzly bear hunter's trousers. In terms of bottom space, the Jeep has five seats, not the seven found in a Landy Disco. From a young driver's perspective this car is not only ridiculously expensive to run and to insure but probably a pain to park nicely. If you find yourself with insufficient parking space you could do what some irresponsible and ignorant drivers do and just make room with the nudge bars or failing that park on top of the other smaller vehicles.
I will honestly try to find some good points to this car. Firstly and lastly the alloys are shiny and chromed so its as they say in the hood: bling. If you are one of the unfortunate people to own such a monstrosity and it is over 10 years old, take it to your local car dealership and get it scrapped, and buy any new car, even a Daihatsu or a Hyundai will dramatically reduce the amount of CO2 released. After all, the Grand Cherokee was voted the worst green car by www.whatgreencar.com and that decision wasn't made by looking at the paintwork. So if there are any Americans reading this, I ask you to go out there and buy a FIAT engined Jeep/Chrysler/Dodge not just because the money will help boost the global economy, nor that it will help keep the jobs of thousands of workers, but because you will be reducing your impact on climate change.
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