Seeking to get their brand onto the shopping lists of people who like the SUV look but whose sense of off-road adventure extends no further than the occasional stretch of well-graded gravel, Jeep's product planners have come up with two marketing distinctions to please both the hard-cores and the poseurs. For the former we have Jeeps with little badges that proclaim them to be Trail Rated. For the latter, the trail ends at the mall, or the supermarket parking lot.

Two of these revisionist Jeeps-the Patriot and the Compass-are structurally identical, sharing skeletal elements with a passenger car, the Dodge Caliber, that has no Jeepish ambitions whatsoever. But of the two, only one qualifies for the coveted Trail Rated badge. So what's the distinction? And beyond that, does a Trail Rated Patriot really have the indestructible go-anywhere grit of a Jeep Wrangler, the seminal only-one Jeep?

Just one way to find out: Find some tough trails and hit 'em. But where? Having recently watched Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid on TV for the 537th time, the choice was easy. The spectacular terra-cotta country of southeast Utah is crisscrossed with countless trails, ranging in difficulty from 1960s-station-wagon-easy to only-mountain-goats-and-suspension-modified-Jeeps-need-apply. A good many of these trails-the entire network is called the Outlaw Trail-were used by Butch, Sundance, and members of the Wild Bunch, and we thought it would be cool to see if we could find any reminders of those thrilling days of yesteryear. Which we did. Sort of.

For the record, Butch and Sundance were real guys, not just whole-cloth characters created by screenwriter William Goldman in 1969. Butch was born Robert LeRoy Parker in April 1866, one of 13 offspring of Maximillian and Ann Parker, British Mormons who emigrated to the Wild West. Robert adopted the Butch Cassidy name about the time he turned from ranch work to the richer rewards of crime. The movie portrays his blaze-of-glory demise in Bolivia, and although it's true that he operated in South America, his youngest sister, Lula Parker Betenson, claimed that her brother visited her in 1925 and kept in touch from his home in Spokane, Washington, until he died in 1937.

For Pricing, Specs, and Reviews of the Jeep Patriot, click here for our buyer's guide.

Born in 1866 in Mont Clare, Pennsylvania, Harry Alonzo Longabaugh was to become the Sundance Kid, a nickname deriving from his 18-month jail stretch (1887-89) in Sundance, Wyoming, for horse theft. Like Butch, he may have survived the 1908 shootout in Bolivia to return to the U.S., where some say he lived until 1936.

Etta Place was indeed Sundance's girlfriend and made the trip to South America in 1901. She left before the Bolivian shootout made famous in the movie's final scenes, but beyond that, her story is shadowy. She was not a schoolmarm, as the movie depicts her, but might have been involved in another sort of profession prior to her Sundance liaison.

One thing is certain: Butch didn't look like Paul Newman, Sundance didn't look like Robert Redford, and Etta didn't look like Katharine Ross. On the other hand, they were all good-looking people, unlike so many other desperadoes (William H. Bonney, a.k.a. Billy the Kid, comes to mind).

Cut to the hardware: Patriot pricing starts at $16,035 for a base front-drive Sport model, but that doesn't get you the Trail Rated merit badge. For that, you need several upgrades. First comes four-wheel drive, next the so-called CVT2L transaxle, which is a continuously variable automatic with a short final-drive ratio, and finally the goodies baked into the Freedom Drive II dirty-driving package. (Freedom Drive I, which does include four-wheel drive, expands the Patriot's all-weather capability but, sorry, no badge.) Four-wheel drive runs $1750 on both the Sport and Limited models, but the prices of the other off-road hardware varies. On our Limited test car, the CVT2L ran $1050 and Freedom Drive II $745, and you can't order one without the other.

The four-wheel-drive system is far simpler than the kind of equipment you can order with a serious off-road Wrangler: for example, open diffs at both ends. There's no center diff, and no transfer case-power goes to the rear wheels via an electronically controlled clutch, which can be locked, splitting power between front and rear for inclement conditions.

When you opt for Freedom Drive II, which gets you the Trail Rated badge, the system gets several enhancements. A brake traction-control feature manages side-to-side power delivery by squeezing the brake caliper of the wheel (or wheels) that is spinning. We suspect this system might deliver diminishing returns in really soupy going, but on the slick-rock, firm streambeds and sandy dry washes we encountered during our trail trials, it performed well enough. Another brake-related element in this package is the hill-descent control, and the standard ABS is programmed for off-road use.

For Pricing, Specs, and Reviews of the Jeep Patriot, click here for our buyer's guide.

For really creepy-crawly, low-speed going in extra-lumpy terrain, the differentials have an ultra-low final-drive ratio-8.14:1-and it's very effective. Incidentally, the Freedom Drive II package, and its badge, are available only with the CVT2L. A very crisp five-speed manual and a CVT with a taller final-drive ratio are offered with less off-road intense editions of the Patriot, but the only way to get that ultra-low diff is with Freedom Drive II.

Other elements that make the Patriot badgeworthy are aluminum wheels wearing 215/65R-17 Goodyear Wrangler SR-A mud-and-snow tires, including a full-size spare; a heavy-duty cooling system; tow hooks; and steel skid plates beneath the oil pan, transaxle, and fuel tank. The underarmor got lots of testing during our forays into the red-rock wilds around Moab, Utah.

Getting to off-road country entailed a lot of pavement driving, to and from Phoenix, and this part of the Patriot's act is the least enjoyable. Still, there are lots of check marks on the plus side of the score sheet. Ride quality is good by compact-SUV standards. The power rack-and-pinion steering is light, quick at 2.8 turns lock-to-lock, and accurate. The unibody is commendably rigid, and the suspension delivers responses that are surprisingly prompt-eager, even.

But all of this is offset by the action of the CVT as it scrolls up and down the scales, searching for harmony with the engine. Mated to a 172-hp engine and a 3572-pound vehicle with distinctly brickish aerodynamics, this transmission generates a lot of sound and fury that doesn't seem commensurate with the forward progress it achieves, particularly during two-lane highway passing. Beyond its off-road crawl-speed benefit, the CVT is supposedly more efficient, and we did record slightly better fuel economy over the course of this test than we did with a five-speed-manual version in our May issue-21 mpg versus 19.

On the other hand, the manual Patriot achieved 60 mph in 8.7 seconds; the CVT version needed another 1.3 seconds. But it was the endless searching for rpm parity that had our teeth grinding during long highway stretches. A logbook note said it "sounds like a rehearsal for the little-known bovine solo in Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony."

For Pricing, Specs, and Reviews of the Jeep Patriot, click here for our buyer's guide.

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2007 Jeep Patriot Limited 4x4

Roughriders within limits, that is, said limits imposed by ground clearance-the distance between mother earth and the lowest point of the vehicle's underbody. It's the defining dimension of any vehicle in off-road use, and it defines the Patriot as a 5 on a scale of 10. The numbers refer to the difficulty ratings of the various trails meandering all over the wilds of southeast Utah.

Jeep lists ground clearance for the Trail Rated Patriot as 9.0 inches. Maybe so, but the steady accumulation of scars on the Patriot's underarmor as we bashed around made it clear that whatever clearance we had wasn't enough for anything more serious than the 5th step on the 10-step scale. Beyond that, we'd find ourselves high-centered on some rock with no winch, which is the off-road equivalent of being up a certain kind of creek without no paddle.

Speaking almost of watersports, one of the Butch and Sundance commemoratives we encountered during our quest was Butch Cassidy's King World Water Park on the north side of Moab. We also found Butch Cassidy's Hideout Motel & Café in Circleville, the area where Butch was born, and visited his boyhood home south of Circleville, which is slowly disintegrating. It's open to anyone who cares to stop by.

And what did we learn? Just this. As a pursuit vehicle, the Patriot would be no match for Butch's bunch. Horses have lots more ground clearance. But as a light-duty off-roader, its capabilities exceed those of anything else in the cute-ute category.

For Pricing, Specs, and Reviews of the Jeep Patriot, click here for our buyer's guide.

COUNTERPOINT

STEVE SPENCE
Goodness arrives in the form of comfy interior space and pleasing ergonomics-you slip in and out fluidly, you fit and move and breathe and operate smoothly-and appealing old-school-Cherokee styling. The plastic is supposed to resemble something else, but doesn't. The four-banger will do the grunt work, but you won't write songs to it, and the CVT's moan just reminds of the Patriot's entry-level status. Get the manual and all-wheel drive, and it's $22,505-and the gas bills won't kill.

LARRY WEBSTER
The choice between the two Dodge Caliber-based Jeeps-the Compass and the Patriot-isn't really a choice at all because the Compass isn't even worth considering. As for the Patriot, its squared-off edges and boxy shape suggest some of the character that made the Cherokee such a success, but it's not as charismatic. The Patriot doesn't have a high, over-the-road seating position, it feels poky, and in the end, even the Trail Rated badge doesn't dispell the feeling that you're in a car, not a Jeep.

For Pricing, Specs, and Reviews of the Jeep Patriot, click here for our buyer's guide.