Say "Rubicon" to any hard-core off-roader, and he or she will know what you're talking about.
The infamous Rubicon Trail winds and twists its way for 12 grueling miles through California's Sierra Nevada Mountains from Georgetown to Lake Tahoe. It takes two full days to traverse this rock-strewn, cliff-lined, mud-spattered, log-jammed legend.
On a 1-10 scale of very difficult off-road drives, it's a 10.
Most of the time, you crawl along at 1 or 2 mph. You need spotters for the tougher, more dangerous sections.
Place your wheels exactly where you're told and you might make it through. Ignore the spotters' seasoned advice and you could high-center on a treacherous boulder, with all four wheels spinning off the ground. Get it really wrong here and you could tumble right off a mile-high cliff.
Don't attempt the Rubicon in anything less than a serious 4x4 with locking diffs and a two-speed transfer case. Better yet, bring a winch.
Interested in tackling the toughest of trails?
Wondering what to drive?
I'd recommend the new Jeep.
When the complete history of DaimlerChrysler is written, there'll be many theories as to how the company turned itself around in the 1990s.
Jeep should get a lot of credit. Think about it. When Lee Iacocca's old Chrysler Corporation bought American Motors, it didn't bail out Kenosha to inherit a bunch of crappy rebadged Renaults that would pile up in showrooms already filled with mediocre cars.
No. It wanted Jeep. But it had no idea what it was really getting.
Jeep already had a franchise with its outdated but powerful Wagoneers. In 1984, the smaller four-door Cherokee, despite being saddled with an anemic GM V6, kicked off the SUV trend. The joke was that no one at Chrysler wanted to work with the AMC guys, and because they had four-wheel drive, there was no sense in merging them into Chrysler Engineering.
So Jeep grew as a semi-integrated work unit that helped form the basis for Chrysler's vaunted platform teams.
More to the point, Jeep's history stretched back before World War II mdash; first with American Bantam, then with Willys-Overland. When hostilities ended, the "little truck that won the war" put on civvies, got a bit posh, and was offered as the Jeepster mdash; certainly a harbinger of things to come.
Thanks to its hard-earned combat ribbons, the Jeep name was nearly as well-known as Coca-Cola, even though its sales weren't astronomical.
As off-roading grew in popularity, Jeep was the leading brand. But some buyers wanted a little more comfort, so in the 1970s and '80s, Jeep CJ-5s and CJ-7s were significantly improved over their more spartan ancestors.
OK, they were hardly luxurious, but they were still the real deal, with a loyal, die-hard following. Like Levis and Coke, there's always a market for an original.
When the Wrangler YJ was launched in 1986, Jeep folks were worried.
They'd rounded off some of the CJ-7's rough edges, and while they were sure the new YJ would do the job, they were unsure whether it would be accepted by true off-roaders. So they decided to use the Rubicon to test that theory.
Twenty years ago, I was one of a handful of auto writers (with no prior off-road experience) who were plunked into first-production YJs and pointed down the Rubicon with the trail's first pioneer, off-roading guru, Mark Smith.
All Jeep did was disconnect the front sway bar on each vehicle, for more wheel articulation. Hard-core Jeepers with V8-powered, much modified CJs were impressed when every single new YJ went the full distance.
Me, too.
I went home and bought a brand-new 1987 YJ, and I still like to drive it.
The YJ was improved, all right, but by most standards, it was still pretty primitive. Jeep's reputation had been founded on its go-anywhere, do-anything performance, so if creature comforts had to suffer in favor of off-roadability, that trade-off was acceptable.
Traditions are important with this brand. Jeep has been using the Rubicon Trail as a development area ever since 1986.
Fast-forward to August 2006.
Once again, I was bouncing down the Rubicon Trail in a brand-new Jeep. The hot new model (code-named JK) retains much of the daredevil character of its illustrious forbears, in its square-rigged looks, and especially in off-road performance. (Mark Smith was still there, helping neophytes learn the ropes.
)
The all-new 2007 Jeep Wrangler Rubicon is a land yacht compared to my battered old-timer. And it's 2.6 inches longer, 5.
5 inches wider and 100 percent stronger than its immediate predecessor, thanks to a fully boxed frame and seven beefy crossmembers. Powered by a lusty 202-horsepower 3.8-liter V6, the new Jeep is equipped with a six-speed manual transmission, an electronic stability program and ABS.
It's also packing heavy-duty springs and shocks, big 17-inch rims and tall tires, solid axles with a multilink coil suspension, front and rear super-sized Dana 44 Tru-Lok diffs, and a slick new Rock-Trac transfer case. Best of all, now you can disconnect the front stabilizer bar electrically!
After 20 years, it's a much more civilized vehicle, with all the mod cons: halogen headlights (at last!
), front/side airbags, a snug-fitting multiposition top, power windows, comfortable yet supportive seats, even a high-zoot stereo.
But it's still a Rubicon ripper. We danced over the worst of the dips and bumps, slithered across buried logs, crawled over boulders, caromed off tree trunks, forded running streams and carved up crevasselike ruts that'd swallow a .
From Little Sluice and The Soup Bowl through Rubicon Springs and up Cadillac Hill, the newest and best Jeep ever never broke a sweat. I'm sold, all over again. Interestingly, at $26,750, the new JK is "only" about $10 grand more than my '87.
The Rubicon Trail hasn't gotten any easier, and I haven't gotten any younger, but the newest Jeep 4x4 is so much better than my faithful old rock crusher, I'm thinking it's trade-in time.
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