The new Jeep Grand Cherokee will roll out this year sans its supercharged V8 Trackhawk model, marking the end of the Hellcat era of high-powered Jeeps. Per MoparInsiders, the model was originally slated to carry over to the new generation of Grand Cherokee but was ultimately axed as Jeep parent company Stellantis pivots toward electrification.
This shouldn’t come as much of a surprise to fans of Mopar performance, as the writing has been on the wall for high-output, large-displacement V8 engines, especially outside of pickup trucks. Stellantis folded its SRT engineers into other existing teams but assured customers that high-performance models still have a home within the company’s brands, even if they’re no longer powered by blown V8s.
Instead, it’s likely that high-output variants will lean on electrification for a boost in power. Rumors of an inline six to replace some of the company’s aging gasoline engine families have been circulating for years. One of the GME (Global Medium Engine) architecture variants has already made its way under the hood of the existing Jeep Wrangler and Cherokee in the form of a 2.0-liter turbo-four – the same gasoline engine at the heart of Jeep’s 375-horsepower 4xe plug-in hybrid powertrain.
