The Avenger is a great little Jeep. Greater even than the sum of its Stellantis Group sourced parts.
The Avenger. It must be a disappointment. It looks too good not to, right?
When it was shown for the first time in production spec at the Paris Motor Show, in September 2022, I clearly remember thinking how much I wanted one. Me. The anti-SUV guy. And someone who never had a thing for the brand.
Could a very small Jeep with no real offroad ambitions be the least interesting to drive? Could its beauty be anything more than skin-deep? Looking at the pictures, I thought the Avenger was the best-looking thing Jeep had done since … well, forever, I guess. I mean, the Wrangler is iconic and a great piece of kit, but beautiful it is not. Not like the Avenger anyway, which is as cute as a puppy.
The original idea for the Avenger was to see if it could be the EV the brand needed in Europe, a kind of gentle introduction for the market to start perceiving Jeep as a brand that could adapt to the new world order where internal combustion engines are the enemy. Harder for Jeep than for most other brands of course, as the constructor’s models have always been seen as rugged and adventurous, ideal for a walk on the wild side – where there are no fast chargers or even domestic sockets.
Like most other car bosses in most other brands, Jeep officials (very) soon understood the electric Avenger was going to be little more than a footnote for the brand and let the much more interesting and commercially viable e-Hybrid and petrol versions take the spotlight. Good decision, by the way.
I drove the e-Hybrid. The 1.2 Puretech engine of the petrol version is assisted by a 48V hybrid system, a 0.9kWh battery that sits under the driver’s seat and an electric motor housed in the gearbox, a six-speed dual-clutch unit. Total output is 100 horsepower.
I went to the press car park on the day I was scheduled to pick up the Avenger with worrying thoughts in my head. Not many cars interest me these days. I grew up enamoured with the mechanicals, the sounds and the smells of the motor car. Those are all endangered in 2024. Constructors need to sell pure EVs to meet CO2 targets and they don’t want too much publicity around internal combustion engines.
Since I saw those pictures two years ago, I have longed for this Avenger drive and even suggested to Mrs. M that this would be a cool car for us to have and drive around town as a daily – provided it was any good, of course.
I collected the keys, I put my backpack in the boot, I sat on the driver’s seat, and I pressed the START button. Electric mode on. Well, it is a hybrid – I said to myself – and driving up to 1km in electric mode can be a very pleasant thing in certain situations.
So, what about that word ‘disappointment’? Well, it feels good to be right and, sometimes, it feels even better to be wrong. A disappointment the Avenger is not. In fact, quite the opposite. The Avenger is the perfect city SUV – a car with no big purpose but that fits the everyday life like a glove.
I drove it everywhere for a week and it was everything I wanted it to be. Practical, comfortable, agile, fast and frugal, averaging a real-world fuel consumption of 5 litres/100km. That is a kind of progress I can believe in.
Also, the Avenger has that incredible quality very few ‘normal’ cars have, which is the power to make you look at it each time you park it. That ‘one more look’ just to appreciate the lines and feel the love for your car.
Inside, the cabin is not as special as the exterior design but is plenty functional enough. There’s a digital instrument cluster in front of the driver, and a 10.25-in infotainment touchscreen with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto as standard. Space is aplenty for four adults and the boot has 380 litres.
The e-Hybrid Avenger is cheaper than the EV version, lighter by 315kg and will definitely hold its value better. To me it’s a no brainer – this is the right Avenger to have if you do a lot of city driving but still want to take a trip now and then without having to stop every two hours to recharge.
The car I drove was a top-of-the-line Summit – €31,600 RRP – but with an interesting list of optional extras, including a panoramic sunroof, bi-colour paint scheme, massage function for the driver’s seat and an upgraded infotainment pack, that took the price up to a nudge under €37,500, making the e-Hybrid Avenger a more difficult purchase for most families.
Still, the standard equipment is plentiful and, with a bit of a haggle, you can probably lower the price to under €30,000, which sounds much more appealing and very good value for such a cool car.
I still want one. And now I know it’s good, I want it even more.
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