Hello, you may remember about a year ago we did an offroad mega test surrounding the launch
of the new Discovery but we brought quite a lot of other off-roaders along too, one
of which was the then generation Jeep Wrangler. Now the Jeep Wrangler has been replaced by
this all new variant which I am sitting in as we speak. What’s to know? Well quite
a lot actually Jeep has considered this the re birth of its icon. It gets a new model
cycle once every 10 years or so but what Jeep doesn’t like to do is mess around with the
formula too much so I am sitting in a cockpit that feels quite Jeepy, there’s more refinement
which I’ll come onto in a minute but the basics: On the outside the design has been
subtly updated and it still retains a separate body and chassis. There’s more aluminium
in the body so the body is lighter. You can get a two-door and a four-door, this is a
two-door because that’s better off-road. You can get it in sport trim, you can get
it in sahara trim which has got a bit more refinement for the suburban user or you can
get it in the full fat off-road rubicon trim which is what we’ve done. So the Rubicon
brings with it chunky BF Goodrich all terrain tyres, this is a car which still retains a
low ratio transfer case, the low ratio is lower on the rubicon and it gets uprated axles
with automatic locking diffs which I have also got control of here and I can disconnect
the anti roll bars for full axle articulation. The articulation in this is really impressive.
Jeep talks about going to the Easter Moab Jeep festival, spends time with Jeep owners,
it gets to know how they use their Wranglers, so it redesigns them carefully when it comes
to the job. So the old car was really impressive - like 42 degree approach angle at the front
- this one's now got a 44 degree approach angle at the front. The rear departure angle
is in high 30s, brake over angle is nearly 30 degrees, it can wade 760 ml of water and
the minimum ground clearance is 270 ml or something like that. This is a serious off-road
piece of kit. That is job one on doing a new Wrangler, it has to go further, be better
than the last one. What Jeep would like to do this time around is add a little bit more
refinement, a little bit more on road comfort and certainly a nicer interior. So let’s
start with the interior first because that’s where I am, this Rubicon is pretty well specced
actually, there are two dials but there’s also now a multi coloured dial, multi colour
instrument between them and we’ve got an 8.5” touchscreen, the base model gets a
7” one. 8.5” touchscreen which has got swipe and grab and all the functions that
you get on a smartphone, it also mates to your smartphone quite well as well so it runs
carplay and android which is terrific because they are usually better than vehicles own
systems but this has got some quite cool off-road functions of its own so you can see what angles
you’re at, what you’re doing with diffs, what you’re doing with steering, so on and
so forth. This Wrangler is a bit bigger than the previous one, this is the two-door, there
is certainly more room in the back than there used to be but it’s still quite a compact
car in terms of its length, 4.3 metres long makes it about the same length as a Ford Focus
but it’s relatively wide. For our UK viewers it’s about 1.9 metres, now in the UK that
makes it a reasonably big car on country roads, if you’re watching in the United States
or elsewhere, that doesn’t matter, presumably it’s quite compact for you, it’s quite
big for us. In terms of its height, when you climb up into it it doesn’t feel quite as
high as climbing into a Defender but I think that’s actually the driving position rather
than ground clearance. Driving position’s a bit more comfortable than the old Defender, bit more car like,
the steering wheel adjusts and all that sort of malarkey, it does feel relatively car-ish
in here but what this car is really about is functionality which is why I am talking
to you while going places that no normal off-roader should really go. I’ve just been running
down there in hill descent control which I can change the speed it’s going to do it
in just by switching up and down on the gear lever. The steerings relatively slow at 3.7
turns lock to lock but the thing to remember is it’s got a very, very tight turning circle
at just sort of 10.4 metres so actually, A. it’s not as slow as you think it is, B.
it’s a really maneuverable car. This is the kind of thing that matters to Jeep owners
and I understand it, they love the fact that this car will get to places that it shouldn’t
normally go and also it’s really flexible. This is the full soft top, there’s also
a 3-piece hard top and coming later is an electric soft top, 4 bolts and you can drop
the windscreen down, these doors are lighter than they were and there’s now a grab handle
here so once you’ve taken the torques bolts out of the front you can take the doors off.
This car is so flexible, so modifiable, so modified, as one of the guys from Jeep said,
let’s face it these cars spend about 5 minutes out the showroom stock and then people just
mess around with them, play with them, it is a toy for grown ups, it's a fun car for grown
ups and I really like that, I really love it. Does that affect what it’s like as a
road car? Yes it does. I’ve driven this one on the road where the tyres hum like an
electric convoy going along but I’ve also driven the Sahara on the road which is meant
to be a little bit more habitable. But you’re still looking at a car whose steering is a
bit vague around straight ahead, there’s quite a lot of road noise, quite a lot of
tyre noise, if you’re thinking about swapping out of a Volvo XC60 SUV and thinking you might
find something similarly scandi cool and refined on road, look that’s not what this car is
about. Remember that, remember the fact that it will climb up muddy slopes like that that
you can barely walk up and you will have a car that you absolutely, absolutely love.
There are not that many cars around that you would say are truly iconic, cars that have
been in production of some form I would guess for what, half a century or more? Some manufacturers
know what to do with their icons. Some manufacturers aren’t entirely sure how to replace them,
Jeep understands the Wrangler, it understands Wrangler owners, it knows exactly what it
should do with it and what it should do with it is exactly what it has done with it. This
is a really, really cool car.