2014 Jeep Wrangler Unlimited Sahara on 2040-cars

Auto blog

If you love this Lego Jeep Wrangler you can help make it a reality

Lego and Jeep: two great tastes that taste great together. At least, that's our theory. The Jeep Wrangler is already a blocky and charismatic thing, and we've seen enough Lego vehicle builds to be intimately familiar with the tug on our heatstrings for a tiny version of it. Remember the Lego BMW motorcycle, or the Lego Caterham? There's a perfect storm here of nostalgia, disposable income among its target audience, and admirable creativity on the part of the builder. Just look at this model! The proportions are really close, and things like the curve of the hood and the seven-slot grille are spot-on. The hardtop is removable, revealing a roll cage, just like on the real thing. The 62-mm tires look plenty tough to handle a mountain of blocks. Here's the thing, though: This model isn't available yet, and might never be. Unless you (yes, you!) command your mouse-clicking finger to vote for this user-submitted model proposal on Lego Ideas. At the time of this writing, submitter CK80 is at around 1,100 votes, and he or she needs 10,000 for this DIY Wrangler to be elevated into the pantheon of official Lego kits. Related Video:

Jeep Wrangler likely to get aluminum body, will stay in Toledo

Perhaps more than any other vehicle currently for sale in the United States, the Jeep Wrangler is viewed by purist fans as a vehicle that simply must maintain the status quo. In this case, that means a body-on-frame design, solid axles, a relatively large engine sitting up front and a removable top. It's always been that way, and it always will be.
Maybe.
According to the most recent reports, the next-generation Jeep will continue to soldier forth with a full steel chassis underneath its stamped bodywork. The biggest change, reports Automotive News, will be that said panels will be hewn from aluminum instead of steel, a seismic shift of a transition not unlike what's happened with the new Ford F-150. Because it won't be a unibody, the SUV will likely continue to be assembled in Toledo, OH as it (almost) always has been - the latter has been a source of heartburn in recent weeks for the Northwestern city in the Buckeye State.

Crawling Moab in the 2015 Jeep Renegade Trailhawk [w/video]

The funny thing about the Renegade Trailhawk is that Jeep still feels the need to defend it. For the past 20 years, automakers have sent emissary vehicles outside the citadel walls surrounding their brand niche. In doing so, these companies found buyers eager to join the cult instead of an angry horde. With the kingdom successfully expanded, automakers had to build new walls to contain this broader identity. This is the story of Jeep's modern expansion, growing with new models while the faithful at the brand's center howl at every quest into broader market segments. Thirteen years after it busted out the Liberty and eight years after birthing the Compass and Patriot, you'd think the resistance to new Jeeps would subside. But no. It's 2015, and while nobody makes the slightest tantrum over BMW's new minivan (except for Sniff Petrol), the Renegade still has to fight its way through pitchforks and torches. Which is a long way of saying that this author is guilty of brand prejudice, too. When the company told us that we'd spend the first day of the Easter Jeep Safari driving seven awesome concepts and the second day driving the Renegade Trailhawk on Dome Point Trail, we could only think, "They giveth excitement, and they taketh it away." Our pessimism was later proven to be incorrect. Sharing the sentiment our colleague Brandon Turkus expressed after his Quick Spin, we found the Renegade to be "in a word, impressive." Dome Point will not trouble a kitted-out Wrangler, but in a compact SUV with on-road tires the rocky sections were chunky enough to require close attention to your lines or use a spotter. As instructed, we put the little 4x4 into the Selec-Terrain's Rock mode, and with common sense plus one eye on the man directing us with hand signals the Renegade climbed over everything with some wheelspin but little fuss. At the first rest point, we turned the car off to wait for vehicles behind. Not realizing that this resets the drive mode to Auto, we crawled through the next two rocky jumbles in the default setting. The result was the same: a bit of wheelspin climbing over thick steps, but an altogether drama-free passage. Auto mode can't use the engine throttle maps unique to each Selec-Terrain setting, but it doesn't hamper the Renegade's capability by much. On a steep bit of trail with a crest capped by stacked stone plinths, it took three tries to find the right line, but that's on us – the Renegade did more than expected.