Like its exterior, the Cherokee?s inner region hasn?t had much updating over the years, and it shows. The instrument panel is a festival of boxy shapes that clearly belong to an earlier era in sport/utility evolution. The long steering column puts the wheel closer to the driver?s sternum than we?d like and the instrumentation looks a little cheap.The Cherokee?s reclining front seats - high-back buckets in our Sport model - were adequate, but not on a par with newer compact sport/utes, particularly in terms of lateral support. This is a smaller vehicle than the compacts from Ford and General Motors and it?s not as roomy. Front-seat legroom is fine, but it?s a little cramped in the rear and the rear door openings are a bit narrow. The Cherokee?s rear seat dimensions aren?t the most confined in the segment - the Nissan Pathfinder and Toyota 4Runner, for example, are both tighter. Our Cherokee Sport stacked up pretty well in terms of interior storage, with several bins and cubbies up front and map pockets molded into the door panels. The obligatory cupholders were mounted just to the right shifter, although this location makes a bit of a stretch for the driver. There?s a fair-sized cargo compartment behind the rear seats, and like all compact sport/utilities the Cherokee?s rear seat folds flat to expand this volume considerably. No split-folding rear seatback option is offered, however. The one new element in the Cherokee?s interior for 1995, a driver?s airbag, is a welcome one. Jeep enhanced the Cherokee?s crash-protection credential last year by adding side-impact door beams and the whole upper body structure has been reinforced for better performance in rollovers. There?s no anti-lock brake (ABS) feature on the basic Cherokee SE, but 4-wheel ABS is available as a option on 6-cylinder models.
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