Jeep Wrangler VS Ford Puma

The two-door Rubicon is rather ordinary to drive on sealed surfaces, but it isn’t anywhere near as diabolical as some people would have you believe.

This is a purpose-built off-roader with a wide wheel track and low centre of gravity, so it feels solid on bitumen and dirt in equal measure.

However, you do have to drive it with full focus and give yourself time to get used to some if its more quirky aspects if you aren’t already familiar with them. There is plenty of play in the steering, lots of on-road floatiness and body roll, and this Rubicon – tipping the scales at 1977kg tare weight (listed) and measuring 4334mm long (with a 2459mm wheelbase), 1894mm wide and 1879mm high – can be an unpredictable unit.

You need to micro-manage this shorty 4WD at all times. It’s like driving a go-kart, but more fun and – bonus – it’s street legal.

If you’re steering it, this short-wheelbase Rubicon demands your constant attention – but that’s a fun characteristic I appreciate and that it shares with only a few other vehicles such as the Suzuki Jimny and Toyota LandCruiser 70 Series.

However, as fun as it is, this kind of fully engaged driving experience – requiring laser-focus concentration to keep a vehicle on target – asks a lot of the driver and does become tiring (nay, exhausting) after long stints on the road or off of it.

Beyond that though, this Rubicon, with a track-tight turning circle of 10m, is a nicely manoeuvrable vehicle around town (for swift turnarounds and easy parking) in the suburbs and even along overgrown bush tracks – but more about that soon.

Wrangler fans who have bemoaned the loss of the Pentastar V6 needn’t have worried. The new four-cylinder engine delivers a gutsy punch of acceleration when needed and is nicely matched to the eight-speed auto. It’s also smoother, more refined and less noisy than before.

The solid-axle Rubicon has a suspension set-up – including coil springs at every corner – that soaks up most bumps in the road, and that makes for impressive levels of driver and passenger comfort.

This little purpose-built rock-crawler is solidly built and it can get noisy when you’re inside of it as it rumbles along a road or track – no surprise because it does have a boxy body, big wing mirrors and chunky mud-terrain tyres. Part of the experience, part of the fun, I reckon.

So, how does it go off-road? Bloody well, as usual.

The Rubicon is a genuine 4WD with a dual-range transfer case, a ladder chassis, solid axles, well-established 4WD heritage and its boosted by driver-assist tech. It’s immediately more at home taking on low-speed 4WDing than it is negotiating suburban traffic, shopping centre car parks or city streets.

I’ve driven Rubicons in pretty much every kind of challenging off-road situation – sand, steep rain-slick rocky hills, deep mud holes, swollen water crossings – and they’ve never disappointed. 

These Jeeps are some of the few modern-day 4WDs engineered with an off-road focus that offers few concessions to anything other than dirt-track fun – the only vehicles in the same realm are the aforementioned Jimny, 70 Series, and even the likes of the Ford Ranger Raptor and Ineos Grenadier.

Steering in the chopped Rubicon retains a nice weight and feel to it during 4WDing, staying precise as needed, offering the driver a great sense of sustained control through even severe terrain.

Its planted stance gives the Rubicon a distinct composure and its suspension – with a coil spring at each corner – helped it to take the sting out of every dirt-road corrugation on the way to my unofficial 4WD testing and proving ground.

As mentioned earlier, anyone worried about the V6 being dropped should calm down. The new engine is a lively and punchy unit – even livelier than the V6 – and offers up ample smoothly-delivered torque across a wide spread of revs, ideal for high- and low-range 4WDing.

When you switch to 4L and drop the revs, it’s easy to squeeze the most out of this new engine. Considered driving is necessary as is slow and steady throttle, but that's easily achieved in this Rubicon and it was never overworked even when the terrain became very challenging.

This Jeep has a well-calibrated off-road traction control system but if you need even more terrain-grabbing magic, it has front and rear diff locks, and a front sway-bar disconnect system, which helps to unlock even more articulation, and let those tyres stretch to the ground for all-important traction.

The Rubicon also has Selec-Speed Control (an adjustable low-speed cruise control for 4WDing that can be set between 1.0-8.0km/h), and Off-Road+, which adjusts throttle and traction control, among other systems, to best suit the terrain.

What’s also handy about the Rubicon is that, via the off-road pages on the multimedia screen, you can monitor your 4x4 system, as well as vehicle steering angle, pitch and roll, and the status of the diff locks and the swaybar disconnect system.

The two-door Rubicon has a listed 257mm of ground clearance and 760mm wading depth. While I didn’t experience any water crossings that deep this time, I did do plenty of driving on coastal sand, just inland from a beach, and there were deep rutted sections, so I saw clear evidence of its running clearance.

When it comes to approach, departure and ramp-over angles, the higher the number the better and the short-wheelbase Rubicon checks out with listed measurements of 44, 37, 27.8 degrees respectively, and this small 4WD climbs up and over even steep rocky hills with sharp crests, without ever being in danger of scraping the earth with its front, under-carriage or its back end. 

The Rubicon rides on BFGoodrich Mud-Terrain KM2 (255/75R17) tyres – real muddies – and those are strapped to 17-inch alloys. These are good tyres and the 17-inch set-up is good for off-roading.

The shorty Rubicon is not a big vehicle and so its Gross Vehicle Mass (GVM, 2404kg) and Gross Combined Mass (GCM, 3751kg) are not massive figures.

It’s not renowned as a towing platform of note but it pays to know that its tongue download is 150kg, towing capacity is 750kg (unbraked) and 1497kg (braked).

If the Puma's pricing is complicated, its cabin surprising accommodating and its real-world efficiency particularly parsimonious, then the upward trajectory of pros over cons continues with performance that's downright spirited.

Around town first. A small-displacement engine plus a turbo plus a DCT usually spell interminable spells of lag when all the driver longs for is an instant and measured response to a right foot flexing down onto the throttle.

But the Ford largely sidesteps such pitfalls. Though momentarily hesitant at take-off, the three-pot turbo does then get down to business in no time, with a sustained and satisfying surge of thrust as the revs grow, accompanied by a lusty and raspy thrum that's entirely in keeping with the Puma's track-pants appearance. And it doesn't let up either, with speed building up strongly through the gears, and much more so than the mere 999ccs suggest. Great for overtaking, or taking over a rapidly diminishing gap in the peak-hour derby.

Selecting Sport (a fiddly action that's located too far from the driver for safe eyes-on-the-road operation) lights an even bigger fire in the Puma's belly, with punchier acceleration and a very attentive transmission tune, slicing seamlessly through the seven ratios, leaving you in awe that a heart so small can possess such deep lungs.

Where the Ford really leaves an indelible mark is its enthusiasm to corner just as keenly, armed with brilliantly slick steering and a planted chassis that is set up to both encourage and interact with the driver. Minimal body roll and lots of grip from a quality quartet of Continental tyres ensure the Puma can be punted about like a sporty little hatchback, while the electronic safety tech allowing just enough leeway for lots of fun before they gently reel everything back into line.

We cannot think of a more enjoyable small SUV. And, by the way, those same driver-assist systems provide exceptionally nuanced lane-keep and adaptive cruise-control intervention – certainly they're right up there with the premium SUV brigade.

Given that our Puma wore 215/50R18 rubber, on a 'sports' suspension tune, the ride around town is commendable, with ample cushioning from the rough stuff. There is some tautness to the ride, but it isn't hard or rough; the ST-Line V walks a fine line between urban-agility and surface-decay isolation. In other words, it's commendably relaxing to travel in.

At higher speeds, some road and tyre noises do permeate through inside, and those Dumbo door mirrors do create some wind whoosh, but overall, given how dynamic the chassis is, the Puma feels grown up and sophisticated.