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New Jeep Liberty weirdly appealing

Redesigned Jeep Liberty takes weaknesses that make the Dodge Nitro a dud and creates a fun off-roader that's a decent daily driver.

Interior highs and lows
Interior highs and lows
Here's where I cut the Jeep some slack just because it's a Jeep.

That may seem unfair but, really, this thing is designed to go off-road and bounce off boulders. Jeep buyers don't care so much about plush interior materials. Rock hard plastic is just fine. It's easier to wipe off the iguana poop. And the two-tone gray in my test vehicle actually looked sharp.

The front seats are mounted very high. At first, I kept trying to lower the driver's seat until I finally realize that they really do expect you to drive with your head up near the ceiling. The benefit is that you have good visibility all around. That's good off-road, but it's also handy for squeezing around double-parked cars.

It's not something you'd ordinarily expect from a Jeep, but the stereo in my test vehicle was excellent. In this case, it came with the "MyGig" hard-drive based music storage system, but the outstanding sound quality was the best feature. (That was, in fact, one thing I did like about the Nitro.)

Last updated December 14 2007: 12:40 PM ET

Nitro

Liberty

Inside

Overhead

Storage

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