Courtesy of Torque News: We take the 2018 Jeep Grand Cherokee Trackhawk around a track and come away surprised by three things.
Torque News was fortunate enough to have a chance to lap the incredible Monticello Motor Club in the new 2018 Jeep Grand Cherokee Trackhawk this week. The good folks at FCA America and Dodge have made the Hellcats available to us in the past, so the amazing 707 hp engine in the Grand Cherokee Trackhawk didn’t surprise us. It always shocks us, but we knew it was going to be there and be special. During our lap, three things really stood out.
Jeep Grand Cherokee Trackhawk – Transmission
The first and most impressive surprise was the automatic transmission in the Jeep Grand Cherokee Trackhawk. Although our own Patrick Rall is the leading authority on all things Hellcat in the American motor press, my seat time in prior Hellcats was always with the manual transmission. The TorqueFlite 8HP95 8-speed automatic in the Grand Cherokee was so intuitive we never needed to reach for a paddle. Braking into turns in Sport Mode, the Trackhawk would fire off rev-matched downshifts aggressively and put us the perfect gear for the turn’s exit.