Jeep Australia

Wrangler Sport: The Jeep for Both Worlds

Made to handle sand, gravel, rocks and ridges, mud-pluggers need the sort of strength and agility not found in road cars. So, to make a model that can switch from track to tarmac and handle speed humps as well as it does tree stumps is never easy. The Wrangler Sport does so by drawing on 70 years of innovation. Under each vehicle is a suspension devised to cope with every bump, the roughest of impacts and with the toughest of trails.

And by building on this, there's nothing the road can throw at it that it hasn't already seen! Lesser vehicles might try this the other way round - building around a set-up set up for the road. Big mistake. As a pure 4x4, the Jeep® Wrangler Sport has a huge 259mm of ground clearance and 3mm-thick skid plates of underbelly protection - that's the speed humps taken care of - and a raft of innovations to keep it on track when it's off-road.

Its predecessor, the famous Willys Jeep, had few comforts for driver and passenger. That said, the first civilian version, the CJ-2A released in 1945, added more comfortable seats and a driver's side automatic windshield wiper. As these vehicles developed, it was soon clear they were taking on several roles at once. People who used a Jeep off-road, also drove many miles on road too; so 4x4 technology and passenger comfort needed to evolve together.

Fast-forward to 1987 and the first Wrangler Jeep: One look inside the cabin reveals the company had worked hard to give its hardest working model the soft touches it needed - but never to the detriment of its role as a 4x4.

Inside the latest Wrangler Sport, it's all premium SUV. Leather-wrapped steering wheel, soft-touch materials, chrome-trimmed instrument gauges, innovative storage and a media centre. Such is the refinement, you'd easily forget this is a 4x4 - although, a closer look reveals a wash-out interior, complete with drain plugs to help you clean out the mud.

Now look underneath. While you're likely to spot the heavy-duty suspension and axles, most of the really advanced technology is out of sight. Command-Trac® 4WD, standard on the Wrangler Sport and Rock-Trac® 4WD, standard on the Rubicon model, work behind the scenes delivering power where it's needed most.

And as a multi-role vehicle, it's highly customisable - in some configurations you can drive with the doors off and fold-down the windshield! Urban cruiser and true off-road bruiser, there's no other vehicle that's a champion at both.

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