Jeep Grand Cherokee SRT8 costs £58,995

Jeep Grand Cherokee SRT8 - perhaps the best value for money super SUV

Jeep has announced that the most powerful new Grand Cherokee – the SRT8 – will cost £58,995 in the UK.

The 2012 Jeep Grand Cherokee looks to be a very good effort from Chrysler, and it has a real fighting chance of seriously taking on the luxury SUV models from Europe. But one model really stands out – the Jeep Grand Cherokee SRT8.

We have an unfathomable soft spot for very powerful SUVs, and the SRT8 certainly fills the brief. Developed by Chrysler’s performance arm, Street and Racing technology (SRT), the SRT8 comes equipped with a 6.4 litre Hemi V8 with 465bhp and 465lb/ft of torque. That may leave it a bit behind European rivals like the Porsche Cayenne Turbo and the BMW X5M in power terms, but you’d never believe it from the performance figures.

The great big Grand Cherokee can pick up its skirts and fly to 62mph in an almost unbelievable 4.8 seconds. That’s on a par with both the Cayenne and the X6M, but we now find out that the SRT8 will cost just £58,995, which is £22k less than the X5M and £25k less than the Cayenne.

Despite the bargain price, the SRT8 still comes very well equipped with Quadra-Trac 4WD for lots of grip (and Jeep understand 4WD as well as Land Rover do), a mas of electronic stuff like Adaptive Cruise, Forward Collision Warning and Rain Brake and an interior that looks to be up to European standards with lots more leather and much less Yankee plastics.

Could the 2012 Jeep Grand Cherokee SRT8 be the ultimate bargain performance SUV?