elzaadusivupege: Jeep's Great Big Beast of Solid Grace

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Chrysler Group LLC

And there are trade-offs. Many of the Jeep-iest off-roading pieces on the Grand Cherokee Overland edition, such as the chassis-lifting air suspension, the two-speed transfer case, the very well chosen mud-and-snow tires, and the Selec-Terrain 4x4 system, are incompatible with the SRT8's track-focused mission.

In the place of Selec-Terrain, with its preprogrammed Sand/Mud and Rock settings, you will find the Selec-Trac rotary controller, with settings for Sport and Track. These settings put a keen asphalt edge to the adaptive suspension; throttle, steering and transmission response; stability and traction-control thresholds; and the center- and rear-differential behavior.

In Normal mode, the multiclutch center diff apportions 65% of engine torque to the rear axle. In the Sport and Track modes, increasingly higher percentages of twist are shunted to the rear wheels and the stability intervention loosens its grip.

Now it becomes what it wants to be: a squat, low-slung, all-wheel-drive luxury race truck, an Audi with a love of knife fights and Toby Keith.

In addition to the center diff, the electronically controlled rear differential provides side-to-side torque vectoring. If the g-sensors indicate the truck isn't turning hard enough to match the driver's steering input, the inside rear wheel will brake slightly, directing more torque to the outside wheel and helping to pivot the truck.

All this signal processing bludgeons physics as we know it into quivering submission. It is just weird to throw this hunk of iron into a tight bend and have it actually go more or less where it's pointed. There is one initial, heart-seizing moment of load transfer and body roll, but then the chassis hunkers into its stance and off you go. Picking up the throttle with some steering input only makes the thing corner harder. It's like an SUV with ground effects.

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Chrysler Group LLC

2012 Jeep Grand Cherokee SRT8

Base price: $60,960

Price as tested: $62,780

Powertrain: Naturally aspirated 6.4-liter overhead valve V8 with variable valve timing and cylinder deactivation; five-speed automatic transmission; multiclutch center differential; brake-based torque-vectoring limited slip rear differential

Horsepower/torque: 470 hp at 6,000 rpm/465 pound-feet at 4,200 rpm.

Length/weight: 191.3 inches/5,200 pounds (est.)

Wheelbase: 114.8 inches

0-60 mph: 4.6 seconds

EPA fuel economy: 12/18 mpg, city/highway

Cargo capacity: 35.1 cubic feet (behind second-row seats)

If you make a lot of sudden steering moves, the SRT8 will eventually succumb to its own superincumbent mass and the rebounding forces will unstick the tires. Then the stability control will reprove you with a chorus of brake chattering. But the limits are simply preposterously high.

I'd be remiss if I didn't also note the giant 15-inch, six-pot Brembo brakes that gleam through the front alloys. Fully engaged, the Brembos arrest the speeding truck as if you'd forgotten to untie it from the dock.

Now it starts to get interesting, because—as the SRT8 proves—we're getting to the point where vehicle type doesn't really matter. If the computer programming is supple enough and the on-board processing is fast enough, engineers can now virtually nullify effects caused by vehicle height, weight, roll centers and center of mass. Throw enough code at it and you can get a Ferrari to drive great in the snow, an Audi A8 with Quattro to drift like a tail-happy Toyota Supra, and you can get an 80-foot sperm whale—I mean, a Jeep Grand Cherokee—to corner like a sport sedan. This is the vehicle version of Ray Kurzweil's singularity theory.

And still, that's not the most interesting thing.

This most interesting thing is that the Grand Cherokee is so utterly integrated into itself, so latticed with a sense of over-engineered structure and vested solidity. The interior materials are top notch. The deep-bolstered SRT8 front buckets are excellent. The interior quiet and cabin timbre belong to a European executive saloon. If this isn't the best-built American vehicle, you'll have to show me one better.

This soundness, which is notable in the standard Grand Cherokees, is magnified in the SRT8. The result sometimes feels less like a machine than like an organic whole, a huge, thick-skulled, powerful animal moving with equal menace and grace through its element. Not a rhino, nor clumsy elephant. A whale. Have you seen it?

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