2016 Jeep Cherokee vs Jeep Renegade

What's the difference?

Richard Berry road tests and reviews the new Jeep Cherokee 75th Anniversary Edition with specs, fuel consumption and verdict.

The TV show M*A*S*H taught me a lot of things as a kid: like how you have to do the bending-over-walk around helicopters, and that you can build a gin still out of anything. It also taught me that the best car for a war zone was a jeep and in my eight-year-old head that seemed to be mainly because they had no doors - soldiers didn’t have time for doors.

I was convinced M*A*S*H was filmed on location during the Korean War. It wasn’t, but the Jeep really did serve in Korea in the 1950s and in World War II – the conflict which gave birth to the little four-wheel drive. See the US army needed a small, go-anywhere vehicle and the car manufacturer Willys came up with the final design and won the contract to build it along with Ford in 1941. It was the world’s first SUV. People called it a jeep (the reason why is lost in time) and it was a stellar success with the name Jeep going on to become a brand in itself.

To celebrate the creation of the little four-wheel drive, Jeep has brought out 75th Anniversary Editions of its SUVs, including the Jeep Cherokee which is what we have just climbed down from after living with it for a week.

So what’s so special about the Jeep Cherokee 4X4 75th Anniversary Edition? Why did it mysteriously start up whenever I’d walk away from it? And would it be better without doors?

Jeep's Renegade might be late to the mini-SUV party but it comes with a pretty impressive back catalogue to suggest that this is a SUV that can cash the cheques its name can write.

The top of the range Trailhawk can write even bigger cheques than the lower models, bringing with it a range of off-road tech toys to let you really get down and dirty.