Commanding presence

The new Jeep Commander melds rock-climbing toughness with urban appeal, says Warren Brown

It's much like a big station wagon, highly capable off roads, but plush enough to serve as a mobile boardroom or den. Seen that way, the 2006 Jeep Commander Limited is friendly, acceptable. It's certainly addictive.

Technically, it is a midsize sport-utility vehicle, albeit a grander version of the Jeep Grand Cherokee, gifted with the rough-and-tumble prowess of a regular rock-climbing Jeep or, maybe, considering its dimensions, a Hummer H3.

Despite its size, it is enjoyable, even in city traffic, where similar vehicles tend to be more of a hindrance than a benefit. The pleasure of it has little to do with power.

The Jeep Commander series offers three different engines - the least of which, a 210-hp,
3.7-litre V-6, produces one less hp than a base Chevrolet Impala LS sedan.

The tested Commander Limited came with a 235-hp, 4.7-litre V-8. But, again, in city traffic, it was surrounded by cars having substantially more appeal.

What was pleasing about the Commander Limited was its surprising manoeuvrability and responsiveness. It had a knack for getting out of tight spots, as well as for getting into parking spaces on crammed downtown streets.

When traffic stood still, as it often does in the District of Columbia and environs, the Commander Limited's cabin - outfitted with leather seat surfaces and a sound system - proved the perfect place to roost.

DaimlerChrysler AG, maker of all things Jeep, is going after affluent activists with this one. They are folks with average annual household incomes of $100,000 (about Dh368,000). They're married.

The several bedrooms in their suburban homes usually stay occupied; and on weekends, after shedding office wear and donning casual clothes with mobile phones and other personal communications and entertainment devices attached, they pull boats, haul camping gear and set out for roads less travelled in those rare quarters of the country that are less developed.

But I toured the District of Columbia and vicinity, where I experienced some of the toughest off-road driving conditions on streets that were supposed to be properly paved and hospitable to vehicles with the gentlest of suspensions.

There were potholes, ruffles, ridges and cracks aplenty in the District; and in my home suburb of Arlington, Virginia, the Commander Limited was put to the test on mini-mansion-bounded streets made difficult by speed bumps.

The Commander Limited, assembled in Detroit and Austria under DaimlerChrysler's "Uniframe Construction" theory - meaning that its underpinnings, doors, et al. are attached to a single, unitised steel frame - handled all of the bad roads with aplomb.

The Commander Limited is a true full-time four-wheel-drive vehicle, meaning that it comes with a four-wheel-low gear and an electronic limited slip differential to help those hardy souls - and there actually are quite a few - brave enough to pursue real off-road adventures.

I did nothing like that during my week of driving, but I did run into several rain storms in which the Commander Limited behaved well.

Automakers generally believe that 2006 will be another year in which they sell 17 million new cars and trucks in the United States, with nearly half of those being trucks, or truck-derived vehicles.

And of those trucks, the car companies believe 700,000 will be large sport-utility vehicles, which is why many of them are introducing models to compete with the Commander Limited and its siblings.