According to current plans, a new Wrangler will appear on the market in 2017. It's too early for outsiders to do much more than speculate on what it will be like, but it would seem to be an act of utmost folly for Jeep to make it look very different from the current model, or indeed from any the others in a line which stretches back over seven decades.The chunky, utilitarian appearance surely represents a large part of the Wrangler's appeal to those who buy it. Perhaps a rejection of modern standards does too, and the Wrangler has plenty of that.Some of its features would be inexcusable if the car were a recent invention. The handbrake and the lever which lets you choose the ratio and number of driven wheels re too far to the left, getting into - and more especially out of - the back is an inelegant process because the doors are so small, the towing capacity with a braked trailer is a mere 1000kg and I shudder to think what Euro NCAP would make of the thing if Jeep offered it for a crash test (which, perhaps wisely, it hasn't).The short-wheelbase two-door tested here is also miserably impractical. Set up for a full complement of passengers, it offers just 142 litres of luggage space, and most of that is vertical. Fold down the rear seats and the figure rises to 430 litres, a still meagre amount and 68 short of what you get in the four-door if you leave the rear seats in in their upright position.But there are some welcome surprises. It's a long time since I last drove a Wrangler, and while I wasn't impressed on that occasion my heart rose the moment I stepped into this model and beheld its remarkably well-finished interior.The unexpected sense of quality increased when I switched on the engine. As in all UK-spec Wranglers, this is a 197bhp 2.8-litre turbo diesel which struggles against the villainously unaerodynamic shape at higher speeds but provides plenty of poke at lower ones.It's mated to a five-speed automatic gearbox which is itself quite refined, but the real marvel is how quiet the big diesel motor is. The Wrangler doesn't look as if much attention has been paid to noise reduction, yet it appears that this is indeed the case.Ride and handling? Long-ago experience convinced me that these would be terrible. They're not. The chassis can cope far more ably with the engine's considerable power than you might imagine, and moderately severe bumps are absorbed well (though more testing ones make the car shake uncomfortably if attacked with too much enthusiasm).Perhaps alarmingly, only one Wrangler has a list price below £30,000, and this isn't it. The test car's Overland trim level, which lies between Sahara and Polar, does a good job of justifying the £31,160 tag, including as it does such things as leather upholstery, satellite navigation, a Uconnect phone system, an Alpine sound system with subwoofer, 18" polished alloy wheels, automatic headlights, a full-sized spare wheel (quite right too) and, for those who actually want to go off-road rather than merely pretend they might, hill descent control.I'm as sure as I can be that I will never own a Wrangler, or at least that if I do at some time in the future it will due to some ghastly mistake. That said, it is now a far better car than I once believed it could be, and I can just about see why it will continue to have a following until its successor takes over. Engine 2776cc, 4 cylinders Power 197bhp Transmission 5-speed automatic Fuel/CO2 34.9mpg / 213g/km Acceleration 0-62mph: 10.6 seconds Top speed 107mph Price £31,160 Details correct at publication date
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