25 Aug 06
In retrospect I should probably have quit while I was ahead but I was so impressed by its on-track performance I simply had to find out how it coped on the road. Big mistake. The only car that springs to mind as having a markedly inferior ride to the SRT-8 is a thing called a Mahindra Indian Chief which, to date, is the only car I've ever gotten into, driven 100 yards, turned around, driven back to the office and abandoned as not fit for purpose. To be fair the SRT-8 is far better than that, but I still found myself scanning the road ahead and jinking around anything that looked even vaguely like a pothole. Then again, I can remember doing exactly the same in the last Cayenne I drove.
In the end I gave the car back to Jeep slightly ashamed to have enjoyed it so much. It is exactly the sort of car we who live in the environmentally aware 21st century should find reprehensible at best, downright repugnant at worst. In many ways it's a terrible car - but Tommy Cooper was a terrible magician and that never stopped him making us laugh.
And there's no denying it has a certain blue-collar charm. It' s like a Corvette SUV and, just as the Vette has spent over 40 years spraying dust in the face of Porsche 911 drivers, so the SRT-8 Cherokee will do no less to any Cayenne you chance across. And if you have any thoughts about the kind of people who tend to drive Cayennes, you might find the look on their faces as they recede in the mirror not entirely unamusing. I, the impartial observer, couldn't possibly comment.
