Small Car

The 2026 Jeep Cherokee may be one of the newest faces in the compact‑SUV crowd, but after a day of back‑to‑back comparison at the 2026 Midwest Automotive Media Association Spring Rally in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin, what stood out most wasn’t any single breakthrough feature. It was how similar the segment has become. Driven alongside the Cherokee, the latest Mazda CX‑5, Toyota RAV4, and Volkswagen Tiguan delivered competent, predictable performances.

One assumes the ad’s writers understood what period consumers wanted to know about—but it is tough to imagine a contemporary audience filtering through all this copy, AND making sense of it all.

While we wish the Land Cruiser could be had for a little less money, we are quite taken with the vehicle's promise of off-road superiority, and its generally fun-to-drive demeanor. And while the old Land Cruiser had its place—primarily as a Lexus wearing a Toyota badge—the trimmer, lighter, more-efficient new Land Cruiser will feel right at home dodging traffic near the mall, while waiting for a blizzard or weekend off-road excursion to demonstrate its serious off-road cred. 

the hosts chat with Caterham's Simon Sproule about the carmaker's tiny sports cars. Listen in for details regarding the history of Caterham, as well as U.S. availability of these storied automobiles.

It looked like a Land Rover playground at first glance. There were Defenders pulling wooden blocks via pulleys with teams guiding them into squares on the ground in one area. In another area, I spied people building bridges for their Defender to drive over. I saw rock crawling and water fording. This looked like fun.