Inspired by the Grand Commander for the Chinese market, Latin America will get a stretched Compass under the Commander nameplate for the 2022 model year. Scheduled to launch in the second half of 2021, the seven-seat crossover will be manufactured by Stellantis at the Goiana plant in Brazil.
The latest official photos reveal a very sumptuous interior that features the same four-spoke steering wheel, 10.3-inch digital instrument cluster, and 10.1-inch touchscreen infotainment system as the Compass. The latter piece of hardware runs Android-based Uconnect 5 software that offers wireless Android Auto and Apple CarPlay along with over-the-air updates.
Developed for displays as large as 12.3 inches, Uconnect 5 further boasts up to five user profiles, valet mode, SiriusXM 360L, 6 gigs of RAM, an upgraded 50K MIP chip, and up to 64 gigabytes of flash memory. Oh, and by the way, you can use Amazon’s Alexa to unlock and start the vehicle.
Quilted upholstery for the seats also needs to be highlighted, along with Easter Eggs that include “Jeep 1941” on the center armrest. Fortunately for prospective customers, Jeep made a case for second-row ventilation controls as you would expect from a family-oriented sport utility vehicle.
Similar to the Compass for the Brazilian market, the Commander should be offered with a couple of turbocharged mills. Jeep refers to them as T270 and TD350 in the online configurator. The gasoline-fueled motor cranks out 185 metric horsepower and 270 Nm (200 pound-feet) of torque, as the badge implies. As for the diesel, 170 metric horsepower will have to make do while torque levels up to 350 Nm (258 pound-feet) from merely 1,750 revs.
The smaller brother of the Grand Cherokee L should be offered in both front- and all-wheel-drive guises, and transmission choices may range from six-speed automatic for the T270 and nine-speed automatic for the TD350.
To whom it may concern, the six-speed unit comes courtesy of Aisin Corporation, the company that was formed in 1943 by Toyota and Kawasaki Aircraft Industry to produce aircraft engines for the Imperial Japanese Army Air Service. The latter is the 9HP from ZF Friedrichshafen, a torque-converter box that’s widely known for slow shifting and noisy operation.
After a 1:43 scale model of a Ferrari 250 GTO sparked Mircea's interest for cars when he was a kid, an early internship at Top Gear sealed his career path. He's most interested in muscle cars and American trucks, but he takes a passing interest in quirky kei cars as well. Full profile
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