The new Jeep Wrangler may be “little” next to an SUV, but it is still an outsize vehicle. Modernizing it with seat heaters, LEDs and a Web-linked computer is putting lipstick on a pig. A rutted road will scramble your brain. Cutting a corner with any accuracy depends on luck. Tire roar and wind noise are deafening. And don’t even think about an emergency lane-change on the interstate.

A Jeep Wrangler is domestic fare like the Mustang, the 4X4 pickup and the H-D hog—machines from an earlier, simpler age, when free-range kids rode bicycles without helmets, our parents smoked cigarettes and drank whiskey, three permits weren’t required for sticking a shed on the back of the garage, and every male took a week off in deer season.

Europeans are mesmerized by these things, too — to them, a Wrangler is also a symbol of a bygone America, the one that came over to help win the war and then faced down the Commies. 

The Land Rover Defender handles better than a Wrangler and a Mercedes G-wagen is much more posh. Sure, and a Yamaha Star beats a Harley-Davidson and Meryl Streep can out-Oscar Scarlett Johansson and everyone knows that double cheeseburgers are bad. Tell it to the target demographic and see if anyone cares.

—Silvio Calabi