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Car and Driver’s September 1983 factor extract.
We’ve been waiting a long time for AMC to become serious. We knew he had the urge to build cars that Detroit couldn’t. The challenge was that AMC seemed to build things that Detroit wouldn’t build even if it could. But we remain patient during the years of Gremlins, Pacers and Eagles, all self-reflected cars cursed by a strange and strange triple distillation, hoping for better times.
Better times have come. We all know how successful the Alliance is, of course, but it’s pretty much an agreement with Renault. The new small Jeep Cherokee, on the other hand, is more or less an AMC deal, and is not only the first all-new Jeep in twenty years, but it’s probably the most productive AMC product in twenty years. When we first saw production prototypes in the Anza-Borrego desert in California, the Cherokee seemed right.
It’s a little hard to focus on the Cherokee Mission in Life, however, Jeep tries to help by calling it “SportWagon”. It’s a van with extra-functioning accents, an American car with an Oshkosh monkey, partly by car, partly by truck. It’s simple that the Cherokee was designed in Kenosha and Toledo, as it reminds the United States before the highways, when it was difficult to get around. The Cherokee can take you to the city in winter or drive a ski boat in summer. It has four-wheel drive to cross the blizzards on its way in or dust through the swamp on the way to the summer cabin.
In fact, you can control the Cherokee by looking at it as the Jeep edition of the S-10 Blazer or Bronco II. It is shorter, lower, narrower and 1000 pounds lighter than its predecessor. It will place a four-cylinder or V-6 under the hood, a 4WD formula under the frame and all the details of a luxury sedan behind the wheel. This mix on the Bronco and Blazer has already inflated sales of 4WD in unforeseen grades and more than double the number of women on the wheel in this category of vehicles.
However, the Cherokee is not just a copy of Bronco or Blazer. Jeep with a different premise than Chevrolet or Ford, and its result is as a result another.
For starters, Jeep men made the decision that the 4WD functionality of the new Cherokee might not be compromised. And, in fact, we made our way through Coyote Canyon with ease, climbing rocky slopes, crossing narrow, weed-covered tunnels, then into a creek bed, sneaking sideways in the sand in search of smiles, all in the air. full-speed and Mitsubishi radio at full acceleration. No wonder the Cherokee offers Functionality similar to the Jeep CJ in its 4WD mode, as it will place two forged CJ axes underneath. According to Jeep, durability is the 4WD rear line and the most productive way to ensure it is the load and complexity of independent suspensions.
However, the Cherokee has more to offer compared to the Blazer and the Bronco than just forged axles. There are two 4WD formulas available: Command-Trac and Selec-Trac; Command-Trac, like other 4WD formulas, can offer 4-part-time ONDDS that deserve to be used only in low traction situations. A vacuum-operated front axle coupling allows you to switch from rear-wheel drive to all-wheel drive with a single bump on a fixed console; you can laugh with the locking buckets. Selec-Trac also offers two-wheel drive and four-wheel drive, but has a medium limited-slip viscous clutch differential that allows full-time use of all-wheel drive. Command-Trac and Selec-Trac are designed for easy traction. According to Dan Hittler, director of powertrain engineering, the perception that full-time four-wheel drive delivers fuel power gains is strictly theoretical. The intended benefits of such a formula only materialize at the load peaks of the tyres, Hittler says, and are therefore irrelevant to the average citizen’s driving taste.
AMC states that its uncompromising axes will offer impressive dynamic floor separation, which has been well demonstrated in the off-road dominance of the introduction of the press. But what about the 200-mile race on cobbled mountain laces and the two flat desert tracks that were also on the dance map? Francois Castaing, Renault’s former Formula One engineer and now director of vehicle progression at AMC, was selected to lead the platoon, however, the forged axles seemed a bit low-tech for road rat racing.
Turns out there’s no explanation for why to be alarmed. You can throw the Cherokee to the laces and keep all 4 tires on the ground. It is tight and sensitive, and cuts intelligently for the upperparts; is defective only through a slow and extremely insensitive direction. On the interstate, the Cherokee feels more solid than a Blazer or Bronco, and the driving force is well insulated from the small imperfections of the road that maximum four-wheel drive cars speak directly with their trimmings. During a flat race in the desert, the Cherokee spun cheerfully, the suspension was sturdy and able to absorb a large amount of 80 km/h through the fords of the Anza-Borrego.
As a general rule, AMC compensates for the theoretical difference in driving and handling between independent shaft suspension and forged with hard paints. The front axle is fixed with a popular five-arm location formula (four leakage links and a Panhard rod), and the suspension works with coil springs, a anti-roll bar and surprise low-pressure fuel dampers. According to Jeep, the coil springs for the rear axle entered the cab, so semi-elliptic blade springs were used. Large spring eyes insulate body hardness, while a stabilizer bar and fuel dampers control the stiffness and damping of the roller, respectively. Although the formula is deceptively simple, detailed paints and tricks with the angle of the front drive shaft and guide geometry have largely eliminated the pitching and rolling we expected in cars such as the Cherokee.
Much of the Cherokee’s handling comes from an uncompromising chassis. You can hit him in potholes in the city or in the desert, and he’s moving forward without shaking. Jeep has incorporated a unit frame with full-length frame-shaped elements to reduce weight and provide uncompromising mounting for suspension parts. The result is a chassis that, according to Jeep engineers, has a twist approximately 3 times stiffer than the frame-by-frame structure of a Blazer.
Under the hood of the Cherokee, locate a 2.8-liter Chevy V6 or AMC’s new 2.5-liter 4-cylinder engine. With 110 horsepower, the Chevy V-6 works quite well thanks to the five-speed manual transmission or the three-speed automatic transmission (with lockable torque converter). We didn’t expect much from the 4 cylinders; After all, the Blazer and Bronco 4 do little more than turn gas into noise. In the end, however, the AMC 4 is really wonderful. This 2.5 litre produces a hundred horsepower and an incredibly flat torque curve. Hang a 4-speed, five-speed, or automatic one, and you can pass and feel good. This engine not only yields more than the 4 Chevrolet or Ford, but also provides greater fuel economy (according to initial EPA estimates).
Although AMC used the tooling from its venerable in-line six-cylinder for the new four, the smaller engine has little in common with the six other than bore centers and some lightweight casting techniques. Computer-aided design cut ten months from the penciling of the new engine, and thoughtful engineering took care of the rest. It’s an over-square, high-compression design, with big valves and a swirl-type combustion chamber. AMC engineers worked diligently on the engine’s breathing as well, which is reflected in the port shape, the large monolithic-type catalyst, and the two-and-a-quarter-inch-diameter exhaust tubing. There’s also some trickery in the engine’s electronic controls. AMC developed a new knock sensor that can retard the ignition of each cylinder individually, a feat that boosts low-rpm torque substantially. Furthermore, this four has been built as a truck engine, with as much as twice the claimed durability of other domestic fours. The new four and the Chevy V-6 are the first AMC engines to be tested on the new 1000-hour durability schedule introduced by Renault (a 250-hour schedule is standard for most domestic engines).
At this point in testing an AMC product, we regularly apologize for its funky appearance. Not this time. Cherokee’s crisp new lines remind the Range Rover in the way they combine flavor with utilitarian appearance, and each theme complements each other. These classic Jeep licks, such as the vertical grille, square wheel steps and boxing in general, have been well dimmed, but the Cherokee still has a sandy sense of character that lacks the S-10 Blazer and Bronco II pickups.
As for the convenience of the creatures, the Cherokee is more than competitive with the Blazer and the Bronco. It has the longest wheelbase in its class, which means the rear seat can be located in front of the rear wheels, allowing 3 other people to sit in the cabin. It also means that the doors and 4 doors offer greater access and exit to the back seat than the competition. The rear seat can be folded to provide a flat shipping space, available through the one-piece fiberglass tailgate, or can be removed completely.
At the front, the dashboard is attractive, the ventilation controls are unified in a functional design and the tools (including a tachometer) are readable. The seats are molded in a shape derived from the Alliance seats, and the seat belt provides comfort. The only residual funkiness is the seat padding and guide wheel hub.
Virtually everything in the Cherokee shows a genuine attempt to bring new criteria of convenience and functionality to this strange elegance of advertising vehicles. Jeep might be the last to launch its access to this market, but the caliber of the hardware and the variety of permutations deserve to make your Cherokee a serious competitor. The frame should be held in 4 degrees of external finish: basic, sensitive pioneer, eye-catching boss and, of course, Wagoneer, which is complete with white flanks and optional external wooden ornaments. There are 3 degrees of interior finish: basic, Cherokee and Wagoneer at full power. Then there are the two engines and the 3 transmissions (the 4-speed one is only with the 4 cylinders). And not the two 4WD systems – Command-Trac and Selec-Trac – and the frame styles of two and four doors. To maintain continuity with heavy truck time, a $18,000 Grand Wagoneer was moved with V-8 power.
Here are many possible options, the maximum of them are good. Pioneer’s sober end is the best, and we wouldn’t like to have a two-door one with a 4-cylinder and a five-speed one and a 4-door one with a V-6 and an automatic. And if you’re going to have 4WD, you deserve to have a capacity on the road, then Selec-Trac is the best. Four-way Cherokees seem more receptive, albeit slower, than V-6s, and also direct better. The 4 doors subsidized more than the two doors, as the 4-cylinder eliminates approximately 35 pounds on the front wheels.
Chevrolet, Ford and Jeep deserve to be praised for taking 4WD cars out of the dark era and making them much more suitable for citizen drivers. Jeep, Array turns out to have thought the odds are really maximum. More than its competitors, Jeep realizes that 4WD is not only a cosmetic device, but limits its possibly use in the life of a vehicle.
Jeep knows that when you need 4wd, you really need it. This appreciation of honest performance, not just the right look, shows throughout the new Cherokee’s design. It’s been a long time coming, of course, but the Cherokee seems well worth the wait.
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