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Moab Utah It’s been a full four supporter years since Jeep has launched an all-new vehicle. That’s a good while even for a brand name whose vehicles have unusually long legs. And Jeep’s flagship, the current WK Grand Cherokee, has been in the stable since the 2005 model year. So the all-new 2011 Grand Cherokee couldn’t come soon enough. That’s especially right since this is the very first all-new vehicle to emerge from Chrysler’s 2009 alliance with Fiat. fortuitously for Chrysler, Fiat and the American taxpayer, it’s a not bad one.

Though the new Grand Cherokee will be launched, marketed and sold-out by this new Chrysler, it was in fact the old Daimler Chrysler that helped create it. The 2011 Grand Cherokee utilizes shared component sets with the Mercedes-Benz ML—including, for the very first time, a four-wheel independent suspension.

The 1992 downsize ZJ Grand Cherokee may have been the first one, but it was the 1999 to 2004 WJ version that has get the most iconic. So Jeep designers drafted the lines of this new one as an homage to that vehicle. And to our eye the design really works. The new Grand Cherokee looks tough, refined and muscular.

So, how does the new Grand stack up against its known predecessors on-road and off? We heavily traveled to Moab Utah, to find out.