The Jeep Patriot - From Action Man to School Run... By Pete J Ridgard At Isnare.com Ezine Articles

Most young males of my generation grew up with the identical toys to one another. There was the obligatory He Man doll (I mean Action Figure of course), Transformer merchandise and Star Wars figurines. There was, however, one toy that inspired almost fanatical devotion rivalled only by the opposite sex’s love for Barbie. The toy in question was of course Action Man.

Some of my peers enjoyed the sheer wealth of Action Man’s weaponry, some were amazed by his gadgets and gizmos. One rather strange boy was even entranced by the feel of his short afro-like hair. For me, the attraction was the vehicle that Action Man drove; a huge Jeep.

It wasn’t any ordinary Jeep either. It had huge rubber wheels, some kind of roll-cage structure and was adorned with rocket-launchers and other projectile weaponry. Much to my chagrin, as I grew older I realised vehicles of this nature were merely the stuff of fantasy. However, the enduring image of the Jeep has stuck with me since childhood.

The Jeep Patriot is the model in question today and it is very far removed from the image I had of this vehicle as a child. Gone is the roll-cage and windowless vehicle of my youth (there are also no weapons to be seen). What is evident is a disturbing amount of...well...class. These days the Jeep seems to fit more in with the middle-class, aspirational lifestyle rather than the rough and ready all-terrain conquering behemoths that these vehicles were initially designed for.

The phenomenon of the 4X4 school-run has annoyed a large proportion of the population, purely because the whole exercise seems incredibly wasteful. Picture the scene, a huge gas-guzzling MPV with just a mother and a small child in, coughing out CO2 all over the place. Now multiply this effect by 500, slam it down in a traffic jam and you have the average school run at just one of the thousands of schools in this country. It’s no wonder people get annoyed. But let’s not get bogged down in semantics; we should judge these 4X4s on their own merits.

As I alluded to earlier, the Jeep Patriot is a much classier affair than the Jeep name suggests. It seems to have had all those rough edges smoothed down to make it more palatable for modern tastes, but has lost none of the vim and vigour associated with the Jeep brand. In fact, I was not expecting such a sprightly ride from a vehicle of the Jeep’s sheer magnitude.

Amongst the Jeep Patriot’s arsenal of gadgetry is ABS, Electronic Roll Mitigation, Panic Brake Assist, Side Curtain Airbags, Alloy Wheels, Halogen headlamps and Air Conditioning. This would suggest that this particular Jeep is going to be a comfortable and safe vehicle to drive. The handling is accurate and feels light for the size of the Patriot. Combine this with the eager engine which manages pretty much any off-road task you can throw it at with considerably more grace than many of its direct competitors.

In summary, the Jeep deserves to be used off-road as this is what it is primarily designed for. The tragedy is that it will spend the majority of its working life sat either in car jams waiting to drop off the kids, or parked in a supermarket car park waiting to be filled with Pâté foie gras and exotic coffee blends. Justice can only be served if you break through a farmer’s fence and razz the Patriot around like a banshee. Then (and only then) will you witness what this machine is truly capable of.

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