2014 Jeep Cherokee "Liberty"

[Doog]

What has been seen, cannot be unseen...

 

[Slash]

I think it looks like an anaconda swallowing an 05-09 Mustang. If I had one, I'd paint it two-tone to reinforce that point.

+1 to Doog

 

[Omnis]

I want to find who did this and put ouabain in their coffee.

 

[Northstar]

Screw gun control, we need to ban the people that designed this from ever designing anything ever again.

Although it does remind me why I forget Jeep is even a car company anymore, Wrangler aside they haven't actually made anything worthy of the name in 10 years.

 

[xXKingJoshXx]

+1 to Doog

+2

Screw gun control

Fixed.

 

[Zenith]

Oh no! That poor Mustang.

Look at how happy it used to be.

Now it wears a face of sheer terror.

 

[E28]

What were they thinking?

I'm assuming everyone blessed with the gift of sight and/or good taste was on holiday when this was designed...

 

[Nessy]

Looks like it would make a good amphibious car, with that front end.

 

[homeforsummer]

I feel the Juke comparisons do disservice to the Juke. The Juke is a polarizing design with at least a fairly clear-cut brief to be unusual.

This thing is just willfully ugly. And I very, very rarely say that about a car.

Make the bottom grille black and stick the lights together and you'd have something passable, but it'd still have that dumb bent upper grille design which looks like they couldn't fit it on the car without wrapping it over the hood. And the rest of it would still be bland. It's like they designed most of it on valium and the front clip on LSD.

 

[RocZX]

And the rear is just as ugly as the front

 

[homeforsummer]

Oh dear lord. Even the proportions don't really work.

 

[ussr]

This is quite futuristics, i like it. Finally Jeep looks different and better than previous one.

 

[Tornado]

And the rear is just as ugly as the front

Why. Why is there so much visual mass in the back?

 

[Beeblebrox237]

The back end is just weird. I like the light design, but the dullness is overwhelming. So it still looks bad.

 

[Dan]

Why. Why is there so much visual mass in the back?

Why. Why did jeep want to make a competitor to the Juke in terms of which one is more hideous?

 

[xXKingJoshXx]

That back end:

 

[RocZX]

Was Chrysler Expecting A Negative Reaction To The New Jeep Cherokee?

After we exclusively revealed shots of the new Jeep Cherokee rolling off the assembly line, Chrysler released the official shots of the vehicle a few hours later and ahead of schedule. The reaction to the car -- particularly its nose and headlights -- hasn't been as positive as the Mopar folks probably wanted. But the curious thing is that Chrysler seemed to expect this.


Let's start with a post on Chrysler Communications' Facebook page, which was up last night but appears to have been taken down this morning. I grabbed this screenshot around 9 p.m. last evening. The gist of it? "Don't judge a book by its cover," which is kind of an odd sentiment to make in a statement to the public.

Most of the comments on that post were pretty negative. The word "ugly" got tossed around a whole lot. More curiously, there's no mention of the Cherokee at all on the Jeep Facebook page, which seems strange considering what an important model this is for them.

Chrysler made similar comments on their Twitter account last night that remain up.

THX for all the 1st impressions on 2014 #Jeep Cherokee. Remember: More than any other vehicle, Jeep SUVs are more than exterior looks

More than anything else, Jeep SUVs are defined by how they do on- & off-road. #Moparchat

Jalopnik

 

[Doog]

That plain rear is just asking to have a spare tire mounted back there.

 

[Tornado]

"Jeep SUVs are more than exterior looks" = "We're already starting to work on what Subaru did with the B9. Don't worry."

 

[homeforsummer]

Will be interesting to know how it sells.

Out of interest, how does something comparatively "challenging", like the Juke, sell in the U.S?

I ask because whatever people think of it, they sell like crazy in the UK, so there's clearly some sort of crossover between how weird something looks and whether it's a weirdness people are prepared to accept or not. If Jeep is already sending stuff out along the lines of "it's not all about how it looks" it has me wondering whether they've already fallen on the wrong side of that crossover...

 

[Zenith]

This whole Anaconda eating a Mustang has a UK joke hidden somewhere in there.

 

[Nessy]

For me, it's the front end overhang that's killing the design.. that, and the upper/lower separation, tends to make the design look kind of top heavy (could just be the colours). Also agree with hfs, in regards to comparing it with the Juke being an injustice.

 

[Wiegert]

The ford Galaxy/S-Max style rear lights aren't bad. The car they're attached to though, it's like they were asked to create their interpretation of what a car as ugly as the Aztek would look like in the twenty-tens. Then again, the Aztek didn't have such a nasty-looking front overhang profile like the Cherokee does.

This is quite futuristics, i like it. Finally Jeep looks different and better than previous one.

Different? Definitely.


Better?

The rear is bland and unattractive, and the front appears to be a giant South American snake eating a Ford. So yeah...

 

[Tornado]

Will be interesting to know how it sells.

Out of interest, how does something comparatively "challenging", like the Juke, sell in the U.S?

The B9 was a complete bomb when it was introduced. Subaru only shifted half as many as they intended to, and making it look like a Saab didn't turn it's sales around.

The Jeep Compass was rotting on dealer lots across the country after the first year until they restyled it to look like the Grand Cherokee, and now they are pulling in the kind of numbers that Toyota does with the 4Runner.

The Aztek... sold a lot better than both of them initially, but didn't sell enough to break even on (typical Old GM wisdom for plant capacity usage), and they also were under the insane assumption that it would outsell the Honda Pilot despite charging about 5 grand too much for it, so it missed its sales target by something like 50,000.

 

[Nessy]

If anything i agree with niky, the design reminds me a bit of the (first gen) Hyundai Santa Fe.

 

[Slash]

Why. Why is there so much visual mass in the back?

Why does it have Viper taillights?

Something seems fishy...

 

[GranTurismo916]

3 words: What the hell?

 

[homeforsummer]

The B9 was a complete bomb when it was introduced. Subaru only shifted half as many as they intended to, and making it look like a Saab didn't turn it's sales around.

The Jeep Compass was rotting on dealer lots across the country after the first year until they restyled it to look like the Grand Cherokee, and now they are pulling in the kind of numbers that Toyota does with the 4Runner.

The Aztek... sold a lot better than both of them initially, but didn't sell enough to break even on (typical Old GM wisdom for plant capacity usage), and they also were under the insane assumption that it would outsell the Honda Pilot despite charging about 5 grand too much for it, so it missed its sales target by something like 50,000.

So ugly really doesn't sell out there then.

Incidentally, Subaru "sold" the B9 here too. I say "sold", because I've only ever seen one of them. They may very well have sold "a" B9 here. Must have only stayed on the market for a matter of months.

Other uglies? Renault Vel Satis (which I quite like, in all honesty) did poorly here, but I suspect that was down to what it was (expensive French car) than how it looked (the Citroen C6 is stunning, but has also sold poorly).

Yet Jukes are everywhere.

 

[Beeblebrox237]

Jukes sell pretty well here in America, and it's not hard to see why: they're fun, they look like nothing else, they're fairly practical, and get decent fuel mileage. There's loads of people who want something like that. This Jeep will, if itss predecessors are any indicator, be unrefined and not fun at all, and will probably get fairly poor fuel mileage. I'd gladly own a Juke, but never in a million years would I buy this thing.

 

[-Fred-]

The thing with the Juke is, it's not downright ugly. It's quirky, slightly odd to look at, but it's not repulsive, like an Aztek, an Acura ZDX, or this. It's practical and quite frugal, too, which helps a lot. I wasn't a believer at first, but I now see the appeal of it.

Perhaps in darker colors this will be a bit better, but I have my doubts...