Comparison Tests
Inspiration, it seems, can come even from the trash dumpster. Or at least the area very near the dumpster behind C/D’s lavish headquarters. There, many trash-pickups ago, sat a silver Jeep Wrangler Unlimited with the optional body-colored fender flares ($100) and three-piece, body-colored hardtop ($1715). The positive effect of the body-colored attachments is shockingly strong. They transform the look of the Wrangler from that of mud-plugger/shirtless beach-trawler to something altogether more upscale and serious. They transform it into what appears to be a poor-man’s Mercedes G-wagen. Why Jeep didn’t start offering the Wrangler or its four-door Unlimited sibling this way decades ago is beyond us.
That dumpster moment inspired not just this pairing but, in fact, this whole section. It’s not just that these two vehicles are similar; they stand apart from the herd entirely as the only two barely domesticated warhorses from a previous version of the world. Front and rear stick axles? Ladder frames? Flat windshields? Looks like it’s time to get our military-chic on.
The Wrangler is a direct descendent of the first Civilian Jeeps (CJ) sold to the public nearly 70 years ago, though periodic adjustments and redesigns have lopped off its rudest bits. The G-wagen arrived on the scene about halfway between the CJ’s introduction during World War II and today. It’s gone from a curiously robust and heavy municipal/military utility vehicle to the oddly posh ride of choice for Russian hockey players. How oddly posh? Well, our test vehicle has a rectangular appliqué of gathered, ivory-colored leather mounted to the inside of the otherwise commercial-grade cargo door. Why?
To answer this and other pressing questions, we took delivery of a $39,955 Caterpillar-tractor-colored 2012 Wrangler Unlimited Rubicon (a similarly equipped ’13 model would cost $40,660) and a $111,050 2012 G550 that is apparently the only G in existence not painted silver, black, or white. We could not secure use of a 2013 model G (which would start at $113,905). We’re convinced that the strip of LEDs mounted under each headlight, the six additional horsepower, and the updated instrument panel that constitute the changes for ’13 would not have substantially altered the experience of driving this more-than-three-decade-old vehicle.
To test these machines in the conditions they were first conceived to conquer (and also to make Mercedes-Benz quite nervous), we took the two over the rocks, sand dunes, and occasional military-training debris outside of Borrego Springs, California. Then we punched a hole in the Southern California atmosphere on our way back to L.A. for some serious old-school Mexican foodstuffs. What does that have to do with prettified military transport? Nothing.
