FINAL REPORT After six months, we bid farewell to our Jeep – a funky small SUV with a big heart
John McIlroy John_McIlroy@autovia.co.uk@johnmcilroy
IT’S a problem of their own making, frankly, but car companies face a tricky task when developing a new baby SUV. Lots of people still like the idea of a small car, but in reality there’s always that nagging desire for it to be able to do more – that occasional moment when you wish for a larger boot, better rear legroom, and so on. And if a car can’t make a decent fist of coping with those situations, it’ll fall short – compact dimensions and funky styling or not.
And so, as we say goodbye to our Jeep Avenger, the time has come for us to pass judgement on this car’s ability to be more than just an electric Nissan Juke rival. It is not, after all, a cheap vehicle; our admittedly top-spec Summit EV weighs in at a whisker off £40,000 – an extraordinary amount of cash for a model that measures only a few centimetres more than four metres in length. Family hatchback it is not; I was not remotely surprised to see the much cheaper petrol version of the car losing out to the facelifted Skoda Kamiq in an Auto Express road test recently. Despite lower monthly payments, the Jeep just couldn’t match the practicality offered by its Czech rival.
And yet, over the past six months, our Avenger has slotted neatly into McIlroy family life. Its compact dimensions and typically nippy EV performance made it ideal for the school run, a daily feat that regularly involves squeezing down narrow roads with cars abandoned on both sides, and minimal parking space remaining.
The cabin, too, stood up well to daily abuse; the bright-yellow strip of metal-finish material across the dashboard cleverly drew your eye away from harsher plastics elsewhere, but these, in turn, proved durable and simple to clean. The fabrics were easy enough to wipe back into top condition too – handy when my son Henry had enjoyed one of his legendary ‘exploding’ croissants in the back seat one Saturday morning.
Things didn’t quite stack up so well beyond the front seats in terms of sheer packaging, mind you. Those chunky Jeep proportions, with a wheel at each corner and minimal overhangs (they help to give the Avenger best-in-class approach and departure angles that will be of use to precisely none of its owners) ought to help with cabin space. But right from day one, Henry noted how close his knees and feet were to the seat in front of him.
The boot also brought compr
