Jeep Renegade comes out talking tough

At first glance he was a little chary of the Jeep Renegade, but in the end Damien O’carroll found it all made sense.

a tough, yet friendly look that should have wide appeal. Inside it carries on with this approach with an impressively high-quality interior with trim that can easily range from handsome and conservative to wildly vibrant and colourful, depending on the model. While all 4WD Renegades come with Jeep's Selec-terrain traction system that features settings for snow, sand, mud and automatic selection, the Trailhawk boasts an extra setting for "Rock", which is essentially a low mode with a 20:1 crawl ratio. This makes the Trailhawk surprisingly capable off-road. The lack of a “proper” low-ratio mechanical set up bothers most traditional off-road fans, but they really aren’t the target audience here, so what the Trailhawk can do is actually far, far beyond what most of its potential customers will ever do with it, yet is so accessible that it may actually encourage them to explore its capabilities a bit. While the Renegade’s price puts it well above similar vehicles from other manufacturers (and even larger vehicles), its unique features, abilities and charm elevates it to a different level as well. In fact, it would probably be fair to say that the little Jeep’s closest competitor in terms of power, price and image is the Mini Countryman Cooper S, which packs a 140kw/240nm engine and costs $51,200. Put in those terms, the little Jeep starts making quite a lot of sense indeed.