Toy Ploy

The Jeep Wrangler might have a sophisticated mild-hybrid powertrain, but its still a plaything.

- Tony Quiroga

EVERY DRIVE IN A JEEP WRANGLER feels as if you’re getting away with something. How can it be legal to drive on public roads in a vehicle with removable doors and a windshield that folds flat? The closest thing to it is the feeling you got when, at age four, you drove your Power Wheels out of the cul-de-sac. Mommy is going to be so mad, and it’s going to be so worth it.

Completely redesigned for 2018, the Wrangler is even more like a Power Wheels now that it’s available with an electric motor. It’s not the sole source of propulsion—a turbocharged 2.0-liter four-cylinder does most of the work—but a 22-hp motor does double duty as a starter for the stop-start system and contributes up to 71 pound-feet of torque for up to a half-second when pulling away from a stop.

We’ve previously tested the Wrangler’s largely carryover 285hp 3.6-liter V-6 and would go so far as to say that that Jeep is quick for a 4469-pound body-on-frame machine that appears to have been designed to help Richard Leakey hunt for Australopithecus remains. That one needed 6.8 seconds to get from zero to 60 mph. With the turbo four—closely related to the engine in the Alfa Romeo Giulia and Stelvio—the Wrangler is even quicker. Despite being slightly down on power compared with the six, it hits 60 in 6.5 seconds. It seems relevant to mention that the four is built in Termoli, Italy, and that Italians hate losing races.