NO POSER: The fun really starts when the Wrangler does what it's designed to do. NO POSER: The fun really starts when the Wrangler does what it's designed to do.
Even a hard man such as World War II general Douglas MacArthur would have been pleased had his driver picked him up in the 2011 Jeep Wrangler.
Fast-forward a few decades, and I think possibly the only thing he would recognise now is the shape that was introduced all those years ago while the globe was tearing itself apart and the Nazis were hellbent on world domination.
Like the Defender and the Land Cruiser, the Wrangler has come to embody everything that is 4x4 or off-road.
Whether it’s trail riding, obstacles, overlanding, or in many cases (not unique to Jeep, mind you) just posing, there’s a certain stereotype that goes with being seen behind the wheel of one.
A kind of Camel Man, with a devil-may-care attitude, and I’ll sleep wherever my Jeep takes me. And the good general would have been able to nod off in places that his original Jeep could only have, well, dreamt of. And of course he would have been a whole lot more comfortable.
Most people will agree that a vehicle with solid front axles is better when it comes to tackling the rough stuff, and the Wrangler has stayed true to that ability. Despite this, its on-road handling is sharp enough not to feel compromised and when you’re driving a vehicle with soloid front axles, you tend to compensate anyway because at no stage when you were looking to buy a 4x4 did it enter your head that you were going to take on the go-fast GTis and Giuliettas of the world.
Having said that, the 3.8-litre V6 slotted into the short wheel base has ample power and gets up speed quickly enough to keep up with the pack, but at a price. Consumption wasn’t completely ludicrous at almost 16 litres per 100 kilometres with a combined cycle of open road, town and low range, but as an everyday runabout, you’re going to see a lot of your local petrol attendant.
If you can, go for it, because the cabin of the 2011 Wrangler is a nice place to spend some time. The finishings on the redesigned instrument panel are neat to the extreme and the hex-head bolts throughout the interior and a dash of brushed aluminium are nice touches.
With an easy-to-work GPS, and a USB device interface that connects to storage devices for use with the media centre, it is indeed a vehicle comfortable with the 21st century.
The Wrangler now also has controls on the steering wheel to operate the radio, cruise control and the hands-free phone. A pleasing change to an old-style shape and attitude. Also available is the body colour hard-top, but reading through the owner’s manual I noticed that instructions to take it off and fit the soft top took up the bulk of the manual’s pages and looked terribly complicated, so I thought it best to keep my 10-thumbed hands away from anything that required lifting, unclipping or reassembly.
Like all short-wheel base 4x4s, space will always be an issue and the two-door Wrangler is no exception. Four people sit quite comfortably, but if you have a pinkfoot running around the house and are looking at an extended holiday, look at the four-door or invest in a trailer. We took the usual suspects to an off-road trail, and a normal-sized cooler and ammo case with recovery gear filled the space behind the rear seats.
It’s when you stop posing and take it off-road for its intended design that the fun really starts. The suspension is a five-link coil set-up with tuned shock absorbers. It has Dana 30 front and next-generation heavy-duty Dana 44 rear axles for those who want to know. What it really means is that you have incredible off-road ability once you move the short secondary lever to low range.
The Wrangler Rubicon uses heavy-duty front and rear Dana 44 axles and has electronic disconnecting front stabiliser for additional articulation. However, they are an optional extra on the other models.
On a personal level, if a four-door Rubicon with its front and rear axle lockers ever hit the showroom floors with a diesel engine under the hood, I would be seriously tempted to strike up a conversation with a sales representative.
Anyway, in the corner of the windscreen is a decal showing a Jeep traversing a mountain range. It might be a hyperbole but it gets the message across. Choosing the correct line at each obstacle proved easy, so I followed this at the more difficult and technical ones by purposely choosing a different one. Whether it was an axle twister, a rocky climb or a sandy hill, the Jeep impressed no end.
As for the young ones in the group, they thought that it was just the coolest thing every time the bonnet pointed to the sky and the Jeep manoeuvred its way out of a tight corner.
While I’ve always enjoyed the look of the Wrangler, the dining room table posing as a front bumper has been a bit of a put-off and I was concerned that it would affect the approach angle. It didn’t, but I’m still not a big fan of it, so a Jeep-approved aftermarket one would be the first modification. Add a decent set of mud tyres on the 17-inch rims and you pretty much have a go-anywhere vehicle.
The Americans have a not altogether unjust reputation for putting together shaky road cars, but when it comes to 4x4s, particularly Jeep and in this case the Wrangler, MacArthur would have locked his pipe in his jaws, pulled his helmet over his eyes and just ordered the driver to go forth.