2018 Jeep Grand Cherokee Trackhawk | Road Test.

MotorWeek puts the Jeep Grand Cherokee Trackhawk through both a track test and a street drive to answer an odd question: can a family SUV with a 707-horsepower supercharged HEMI actually behave like a performance car? The numbers, including a 0-60 time that beats plenty of dedicated sports cars, are only part of the story. Host John H. Davis brings three decades of consistency to a review of one of the strangest vehicles Jeep ever built. The verdict explains why it is still talked about years later.

A family SUV that can out-accelerate cars costing three times as much sounds like a contradiction, and for most of automotive history, it would have been. Jeep built the Grand Cherokee Trackhawk anyway, stuffing a supercharged engine borrowed from Dodges most unhinged muscle cars into a vehicle designed to haul groceries and car seats. MotorWeeks John H. Davis, a host whose voice has barely changed in three decades on the show, puts it through both a track test and a street drive to find out whether the concept actually holds up outside a spec sheet. One commenter joked about showing the numbers to a 1982 MotorWeek audience just to watch their reaction. That reaction is worth imagining before the numbers even show up on screen.

The Engine That Does Not Belong in an SUV

Under the hood sits a supercharged 6.2-liter HEMI V8 producing 707 horsepower, the same family of engine found in the Dodge Charger and Challenger Hellcat models. Dropping that much power into a three-row family SUV was never a foregone conclusion for Jeep, and MotorWeek treats the decision with the seriousness it deserves, testing whether a vehicle built on a platform designed for towing and daily comfort can actually handle numbers usually reserved for dedicated performance cars.

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0-60 in 3.5 Seconds, From an SUV

The Trackhawks straight-line numbers put it in company usually reserved for exotic sports cars, launching from a stop to 60 miles per hour in roughly 3.5 seconds. For context, that is quicker than plenty of dedicated sports cars costing significantly more, a fact MotorWeeks testing confirms rather than simply repeats from a press release. One commenters imagined reaction from a 1982 audience, hearing those numbers alongside a price tag pushing six figures, captures exactly how far outside the norm this vehicle sits, even by todays standards.

Why MotorWeek Tests It on an Actual Track

Rather than relying solely on a public road impression, MotorWeek takes the Trackhawk onto a proper track, treating it less like an SUV review and more like a performance car evaluation. That distinction matters because a vehicle with this much power and this much weight behaves very differently under sustained cornering and braking than it does accelerating in a straight line, and the track segment is where the Trackhawks engineering compromises, if any exist, would show up first.

The Business Case Nobody Can Quite Explain

Several commenters echo a similar sentiment: there is almost no rational business case for a vehicle like this, which is precisely why enthusiasts love it so much. Building a three-row family hauler capable of embarrassing sports cars at a stoplight makes little financial sense for Jeep, but it generates exactly the kind of halo-car attention that gets an entire brand talked about, well beyond the relatively small number of Trackhawks that ever actually sold.

Shared DNA With the Dodge Hellcat Family

The Trackhawks powertrain connects it directly to the Hellcat-badged Chargers and Challengers that redefined what a factory muscle car could be in the 2010s, borrowing the same supercharged architecture rather than a watered-down version of it. That shared engineering meant Jeep buyers got genuine Hellcat-level performance in a body style built for practicality, a combination that had no real precedent in mainstream SUVs when the Trackhawk launched.

A Host Whose Consistency Is Part of the Appeal

It says something about MotorWeeks institutional credibility that longtime viewers comment on host John H. Davis sounding essentially unchanged across three decades of reviews. That consistency gives the shows testing methodology a kind of trustworthiness newer, more polished car content often lacks, since viewers know roughly what to expect from the format regardless of which vehicle is being evaluated that week.

The Brakes That Have to Match the Power

Braking is often the forgotten half of a performance SUV conversation, but a vehicle capable of hitting triple-digit speeds needs a braking system to match, and the Trackhawk carries oversized rotors and multi-piston calipers borrowed from the same performance parts bin as its Hellcat siblings. Reviewers who focus purely on acceleration numbers often miss how much engineering goes into making sure a two-and-a-half-ton SUV can actually scrub off speed as confidently as it builds it.

Full Towing and Cargo Capacity, No Excuses

Towing and cargo capacity remain fully intact despite the performance upgrades, since Jeep engineered the Trackhawk to retain the same functional hardware, roof rails, a full-size spare in some configurations, and a properly reinforced tow hitch rating, that regular Grand Cherokee buyers expect. Very few vehicles anywhere in the market manage to combine genuine three-row family utility with supercar-embarrassing acceleration without asking the owner to sacrifice one for the other.

The One Tradeoff Nobody Pretends Does Not Exist

Fuel economy is the one area where the Trackhawk makes no attempt to compromise for practicality, since a supercharged 707 horsepower V8 hauling nearly three tons of SUV was never going to post impressive numbers at the pump, and MotorWeek does not shy away from acknowledging that tradeoff directly rather than glossing over it the way a manufacturer press kit typically would.

A Family Hauler That Refuses to Compromise

The interior compromises almost nothing for the performance underneath, retaining the third-row seating, cargo space, and daily livability buyers expect from a Grand Cherokee, which is part of what makes the Trackhawk concept so unusual in the first place. Most performance-flagship vehicles ask owners to sacrifice practicality for speed, but this one specifically refuses to make that tradeoff, letting an owner haul a full family to soccer practice and still embarrass a sports car on the way home.

Why the Trackhawk Still Gets Talked About Years Later

Long after its original production run, the Trackhawk remains a reference point anytime the conversation turns to high-performance SUVs, cited by commenters as one of the best all-around performance vehicles under six figures regardless of body style. That staying power, years after this review first aired, says more about how well the concept actually worked than any single acceleration number could on its own.

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