Jeep Renegade

It is not built in America. The Renegade comes out of the plant at Melfi in Italy, on one line with the Fiat 500X and on the same platform. All of our VINs begin with ZAC — the first character is the country code and Z means Italy. That has a practical consequence, and a good one: the body, the suspension, the interior and the electronics are the same parts already sitting on shelves here. The opposite of a Wrangler with the 3.0 EcoDiesel, where nothing has a European twin.

The engine is where the car stops being European. The 2.4 Tigershark, naturally aspirated, 180 hp, is five of every six we offer — and it was never sold in Europe, because the tax on a 2.4 here would have made the car pointless. That is the orphan: an Italian car with an engine no Italian dealer ever stocked. The 1.4 MultiAir turbo and the later 1.3 turbo were sold on both sides.

The other direction is longer. Europe got the 1.0 three-cylinder FireFly with 120 hp and a manual gearbox — an engine America would have taken for a joke. It also got the 1.6 and 2.0 MultiJet diesels, the 2.0 with 140 or 170 hp giving serious torque off road. And the 4xe plug-in hybrid, where the rear axle is driven entirely by electricity. Of all that we hold a single 2.0 and not one 4xe.

A third do not have four driven wheels. That is the American base trim, Sport — front drive, cheaper plastics, no extras. In Europe the base is Longitude, and above it Night Eagle, Limited and S lean on digital assistance and Uconnect. Trailhawk is the one trim that means the same thing on both sides of the ocean: Trail Rated certification, raised suspension, real steel skid plates and a rock mode.

Two things are visible straight from the photographs. The orange rectangles in the front wings are an American legal requirement — European Renegades do not have them, their indicators are in the mirrors instead. And the My Sky roof, two removable panels that stow in a bag in the boot, was much wanted in America and almost never ordered in Europe. Either one tells you at a glance which market the car was built for. One more thing about the years: Jeep withdrew the Renegade from America in 2023, which is why our cars stop there.