Heads turn as the Jeep Gladiator glides by imperiously. Even loyalists of competing brands surreptitiously nod their heads in approval before guiltily glancing around to ascertain they remain conspicuous while betraying their chosen marque.
Heads should turn as the Gladiator is sufficiently left-of-centre to guarantee it gets noticed wherever it may roam on or off-road – and I love it.
I do not love it because it is better, faster, or more capable than any similar leisure off-roader out there. I love it because it does not conform. I would love to shake hands with the designer who came up with the idea of taking a Wrangler and turning it into a truck.
A serious head-turner
Automotive design imagination should not be exclusive to the designers of exotic sports cars. In an age where bland conservatism often rules, the left-field approach is like a breath of pine-scented fresh air.
Think back and think of the Citroën 2CV, the DS and more recently, the Cactus. It matters little how good the cars were – we are talking imagination here. The Chrysler PT Cruiser – a pretty awful car – was a fun design, as was the googly-eyed Fiat Multipla.
Jeep’s adult Lego car – the roof and doors removable – is not the first pickup in the marque’s history. It was back in 1947 that the original Willys Overland received a load bed and the Gladiator name came into being in 1963. It was dropped in 1972 in favour of Scrambler and then Comanche – before being revived for this version.
The front end is pure Jeep, with the iconic 7-slot grille dominating. The slots on the Gladiator are extended to improve airflow, and it gets LED headlamps, fog lamps and daytime running lights that form a halo around the outside perimeter of the headlights.
Pure Jeep front design
At the back, traditional square tail lamps feature LED lighting and give way to a wide tailgate opening for undemanding cargo loading into the bed. The full-size spare tyre and mount are under the bed, behind the rear axle. They can hold up to a 35-inch tyre.
A four-bolt design at the top of the windshield frame allows the windscreen to contract quickly and easily.
Lightweight, high-strength aluminium doors feature the Torx bit size stamped directly onto the hinge to eliminate guessing the size bit needed to remove them. A tool kit with the necessary Torx bits to function comes as standard equipment.
No doubt practice makes perfect but removing all the bits and pieces took me well over an hour – so not something you might want to be doing with thunder clouds hovering overhead. However, the infotainment screen claims to be watertight.
As the range flagship – and the only variant available in South Africa – Jeep has not stinted with the interior, providing comfortable and contoured seating for the driver and front passenger along with a hand-wrapped instrument panel with soft-touch surfaces and accent stitching.
Rubicon 3,6 Litre Pentastar V6 engine
Functional features, including climate and volume control knobs, media charging and connectivity ports, and Engine Stop Start (ESS), are all easily within reach of the front-seat occupants.
It stays ‘old school’ with two gear levers to ease the transition from rear to 4x4 drive. The centre-console houses gear shift selection, transfer case and parking brake. One tiny niggle – I found the centre storage box intrusive when making left turns, especially rapid ones in the dirt and mud and kept banging my elbow.
The rear seats can lock in place to provide secure cargo space behind the backseat and are foldable flat to create a larger load space – with the cushions at the back also lifting to reveal an open storage bin.
The 7-inch thin-film transistor (TFT) information LED display allows the driver to configure information in more than 100 ways, including current media, tyre pressure, tyre-fill alert or digital speed readout. Integrated buttons on the steering wheel control audio, voice and speed functions, allowing the driver to keep their hands on the wheel at all times.
Ultimate 4X4 performance
An 8,4-inch touchscreen houses the fourth generation Uconnect system, two USB ports and a USB-C port up front - and two in reach of occupants in the back seat connect to the media centre, ensuring the Gladiator keeps pace with current trends in the connectivity department.
There is no pretence or denying what this vehicle is. None of that padding to keep out the sound of movement so firing up the 3,6-litre Pentastar V6 petrol engine produces a soul-satisfying deep gut rumble that gets better as all the 209 kW and 347 Nm of torque come into play.
It drives through an 8-speed automatic transmission that has a 77,2:1 crawl ratio. The towing and 4x4 performance benefit from a 4,7:1 first gear ratio coupled with a 4,1:1 final drive.
Selec-Speed Control is standard with the eight-speed automatic transmission and manages vehicle speed in "4LO" while traversing off-road terrain without requiring throttle or brake input, allowing the driver to focus on steering. Selec-Speed Control is activated using a button on the dashboard and is adjustable from 1-8 km/h using the AutoStick shift control.
It rides on 255/70 R17 tyres, even with the bulbous tarmac-ripper off-road tyres fitted to the test vehicles, providing a ride quality better than one might initially imagine. Off-road, this is even more noticeable. It will happily hurtle along rippled dirt tracks without constant steering intervention from the driver to keep it in a straight line.
Off-road monster at work
For focused off-road playtime, it has an approach angle of 43,6 degrees, breakover angle of 20,3 degrees, departure angle of 26 degrees and ground clearance of 249 mm (to the rear diff).
The body-on-frame design and five-link suspension system work together to keep the vehicle composed when negotiating challenging obstacles.
The rear five-link coil suspension design features two upper and two lower forged steel control arms for longitudinal control and a track bar for lateral axle control. The control arms are under the frame rails, while the rear shocks are forward facing to provide consistent damping for ride comfort and load management.
Wrapping it up
At R1 299 900, I think it is pricey (darn import duties and levies) and, with average fuel consumption of 12,7 l/100km, is a bit of a wallet-muncher. However, it still is a candidate for my dream garage.
