New Jeep Grand Cherokee facelift to get European debut at Geneva

The new Jeep Grand Cherokee will arrive at the Geneva Motor Show in EU guise in March ahead of a launch in the UK and Europe in the third quarter 2013.

In all the ways that matter, the Jeep Grand Cherokee (which will be a 2014 model by the time it arrives in showrooms in the UK) for Europe is the same as that for North America, although it will have different engines, and just about all the shortcomings of the current Grand Cherokee have been addressed by the facelift.

That means the cheap in places interior gets a good makeover to make the Grand Cherokee a more convincing place to be for European tastes, and the Atari-like Infotainment centre gets a proper makeover too to make it more 21st, and less 20th, century.

That might not seem like a big leap, but the Grand Cherokee is so able – and Land Rover good off-road – that the cheapness of the interior does jar when everything else is very good.

Jeep Grand Cherokee Facelift Photos >>

There’s a few tweaks to the exterior too, as you would expect from a facelift, but the major mechanical change is to the gearbox, with the old-school five-speed auto being replaced by a much better, modern 8-speed auto.

Engine choices, certainly for the UK, will stay as the 3.0 litre Mercedes diesel for all but a few sales, with the remaining sales taken by the mad SRT8 with its 461bhp petrol V8, good for a 0-62mph in a scant 5 seconds.

The 2014 Jeep Grand Cherokee will go on sale in the UK and Europe in the third quarter of 2013. Jeep hasn’t given us a price for the facelift of the Grand Cherokee yet, but it’s unlikely they’ll rise much from the current £38,595 for the Limited rising to £59,595 for the SRT8.

By Cars UK