Jeep takes on tough terrain

For 2007, the brand's iconic Wrangler is engineered to be more rugged off-road and more refined on it.

Over an 8.6-mi (14-km) stretch of the Rubicon Trail in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, which took more than 4 h to traverse, the new 2007 Jeep Wrangler proved to be every bit as capable, if not more so, than its predecessors. Perhaps more impressive is that the sixth-generation SUV handled just as capably on the paved roads winding around Lake Tahoe.

Jeep engineers focused on more than 50 functional objectives-from ground clearance to articulation to ride and handling-for the new Wrangler lineup. One of the main engineering features that contributed significantly to the improved ride and handling characteristics on such varied surfaces is a new fully boxed frame that is 100% stiffer in bending and 50% stiffer in torsion.