While FCA hasn’t dragged out the introduction of the 2018 Jeep Grand Cherokee Trackhawk as long as the Challenger SRT Demon, make no mistake that the hot-rod Grand Cherokee has been a long time coming. Spy footage has been floating around for over a year now of Grand Cherokee SRT-8s with front body cladding hidden under camo and canvas, but nobody was fooled. FCA realized that they had stumbled onto a great formula when they unloaded the 6.2L, supercharged Hemi V8 into the Challenger and Charger: a moderate, reasonable price tag attached to a warhead with license plates sells. So why not apply the formula that has worked for Mopar’s muscle cars to an all-wheel-drive SUV?

Unlike earlier suspicions of a de-tuned Hellcat, the Trackhawk comes out swinging with each and every one of those 707 horsepower will be present and accounted for. And yes, we did say all-wheel-drive: the transfer case, drive shaft and front half-shafts were all beefed up to take the onslaught of power. The case has three modes: “Snow”, giving a 50/50 power split, the standard 40/60 split in the automatic setting, and for fun time, “Track”, splitting the forces 30/70. And you’ll be happy for that, because on one end of a launch is the “Torque Reserve” anti-lag system that will also be found on the Demon, and on the other side are four 295-series chunks of rubber that stand ready to dig into the asphalt. If you’ve ever looked at a rally car and wondered what launching one of those in anger feels like, the Trackhawk stands to deliver that same sensation. 0-60 will be around 3.5 seconds, the quarter mile should be in the mid-11s dead stock, and the wind will defeat the engine somewhere near 180 miles an hour. And don’t sweat stopping the Trackhawk, either: 15.75-inch front and 13.73-inch rear Brembos will make short work of that.

There is one spot where the Trackhawk loses to the Charger/Challenger setup: you will get five foot-pounds less torque due to the design of the exhaust. But for those five pounds, you get one party trick that neither the Charger nor Challenger can do: you can tow up to 7,200 pounds behind the Trackhawk. That’s right…this monster of an SUV can be hooked up to a trailer and be a useable tow pig. We sincerely doubt that we will see a Trackhawk hauling a race-prepared Hellcat to a track anytime soon, but it is good to know that it’s not out of the question.

Sport-utility vehicles are the volume leader in new-car sales, nobody is doubting that. But not many manufacturers are building a no-kidding, bare-knuckle brawler like this. What will take this on? Supercharged Range Rovers? A BMW X6 M? The Porsche Cayenne Turbo S? The Grand Cherokee SRT 392 already trumps most of them as-is. The 2018 Jeep Grand Cherokee Trackhawk, then, is simply a stacked dare, one we don’t think anybody is going to have an answer for.