If you were looking to get your hands on a 2026 Jeep Grand Cherokee with some off-road chops, your hopes were dashed earlier this year when Jeep quite unceremoniously dumped them from its lineup with the equally silent discontinuation of its plug-in hybrid 4xe powertrain that was standard on both. Well, they’re back—almost, anyway. Both the Overland and the Trailhawk will return for the 2027 model year, which means Jeep should make good on its promise to revive the 4×4 variants before 2026 is out.
“The Grand Cherokee is a cornerstone of the Jeep brand – one of the most recognized and trusted SUVs worldwide,” Jeep brand CEO Bob Broderdorf said in the company’s announcement. “The Grand Cherokee Trailhawk uniquely embodies the go anywhere, do-anything ethos of this brand. It’s an SUV that handles your daily routine and is engineered to be a leader in capability to confidently hold its own off-road with the legendary Trail Rated badge, staying true to the brand’s authentic 4×4 DNA.
“For Jeep Grand Cherokee Overland, this model serves a unique purpose in the lineup: to combine legitimate off-road capability and the premium, refined features that it’s been known for since its introduction 25 years ago,” Broderdorf continued. “There is simply no other SUV that provides what Overland accomplishes with the value of Jeep brand.”
Jeep’s announcement didn’t hint at any other major changes to the car for 2027. That makes sense on spec; the car was just updated for 2026, and the Overland and Trailhawk were only back-burnered because they were previously available only with the 4xe hybrid. And while there have been rumors to the contrary, the I4 has not completely supplanted the base V6, at least not yet.
In fact, we reached out to Jeep just to clarify, and a company spokesperson confirmed that both the standard Grand Cherokee and the three-row Grand Cherokee L will still have the Pentastar V6 in their most basic trims (Laredo and Laredo X). Stepping up to the Laredo Altitude bumps you up to the 2.0-liter Hurricane-4, with no V6 option available. The same holds true for all trims above that.
The return of the Overland and Trailhawk models will once again give the Grand Cherokee some off-road credibility; after all, what good is a Jeep if it’s not “Trail-Rated”? With the Overland, you get a two-speed transfer case (a must for crawling), air suspension (with a max-clearance off-road setting), hill descent control and what Jeep calls “semi-active” dampers (not a fully adaptive suspension, in other words).
Trailhawk adds a rear electronic limited-slip differential (not a full-blown locker, mind you), some even chunkier tires, an integrated “TrailCam” exterior camera mode with a rear washer, and six high-strength steel skid plates.
The Overland and Trailhawk will go back into production this fall; we should hear more about pricing when Jeep’s ready to start sending them to showrooms.
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