• Two body styles to choose from
• Four-door is much more practical
• Decent boot in four-door, and good headroom in all

The amount of space on offer in the Wrangler depends on the body style that you choose. The four-door version – unsurprisingly – is a much more practical option if you regularly need to put people in the rear seats or get luggage in the boot.

Choose the two-door Wrangler and space in the rear isn’t too bad considering the car’s short wheelbase. Access is a little tricky as the Wrangler rides so high, plus you need to fold the front seats forward to pull yourself up into the rear seats. Once in, though, there’s enough room for an average-sized adult, although some may find their knees up higher than you’d expect due to the seat base being tilted back slightly.

It’s worth noting here that the two-door Wrangler is a four-seater only, so there’s plenty of room to stretch out widthways for those in the back, without the need to potentially squeeze a fifth person in the middle seat.

If it’s the four-door that takes your preference, access to the rear seats is much easier thanks to a set of rear doors (obviously), but it’s still a jump up into the seats. Once in, there’s more legroom than in the two-door, but it still has the same generous headroom throughout.

There are some clever storage ideas throughout, such as a large central area beneath the armrest, four potential places to keep your phone, an under-seat storage area in the rear of the car and a decent-sized glovebox.

The two-door Wrangler doesn’t look big on the outside (the four-door does) and, despite its squared-off dimensions, feels a big car to manoeuvre. You won’t struggle with parking a two-door in a space thanks to its short length, but you might take a while to get used to judging the extremities of the car when parking.

The turning circle isn’t too bad, but will require a lot of flailing at the steering wheel as you need to put quite a lot of effort into manoeuvring the car.

This impression is heightened with the four-door as it’s very long, and visibility out the rear of the car is limited due to chunky pillars at the back of the car, and it also depends on the type of roof that you’ve gone for.

Thankfully, all Wranglers come with a reversing camera which helps to judge where the rear of the car is (especially as the spare tyre is located on the tailgate), and it’s of good quality, too. The only issue with it is that it gets dirty very easily, so you’ll have to remember to give it a wipe from time to time if it gets grubby.

The Wrangler’s tailgate opens in two parts. The lower part is side-hinged and opens like a regular door, while the upper section (the window) opens upwards, although this can vary depending on the roof you go for. You need to open the lower part quite wide for the glass hatch to clear the spare wheel.

The two-door’s boot is quite small, in that there isn’t much distance to the back seats, so loading longer items will be a little tricky. The rear seats do fold, but as they’re mounted on the same level as the boot floor, you won’t be able to fit large items in easily with a flat floor. Despite this, standard boot space measures at just 192 litres with the rear seats in place, and 587 litres with them folded.

It’s a similar story with the four-door Wrangler, but due to the longer length of the car, there’s more space in the standard set-up to take advantage of. There’s a much more usable 533 litres of boot space on offer with the rear seats in place, and this expands to 1,044 litres with them folded.

Jeep Wrangler safety

• Jeep claims the Wrangler is packed with safety kit…
• Yet its 2018 Euro NCAP score is just one star
• Compared to previous Wranglers it’s a big leap forward

All Wranglers can include a lightweight hardtop with two detachable forward panels that can be whipped off and popped in the back in seconds. A fixed, substantial roll cage contributes to an exceptionally good crash performance for this class of vehicle (though Euro NCAP rates it poorly, due to the lack of driver assistance).

Safety is also massively improved over previous Wranglers in other ways, too; glance down at the transfer box lever and there’s a spot for full-time all-wheel drive and ‘auto’, as well as locked centre diff and low-range. Yes, this Wrangler finally has the convenience of wet-road friendly 4×4 previously reserved for things like Cherokees; it makes a huge difference, and tames an occasionally tail-happy attitude for enthusiastic drivers.

While the Jeep Wrangler is available with an array of contemporary safety kit, its Euro NCAP crash-test result appeared shockingly bad for a new car built to meet more stringent assessment. A single star was awarded to the Wrangler in 2018, suggesting it’s not a particularly safe vehicle to be in as a passenger, let alone being hit by one as another road user.

Euro NCAP has clarified that this is due to the lack of standard-fit driver assistants, and even if it had not been penalised in the crash test, it would still only get one star due to the way the results are presented.

Such a disappointing result will doubtless impact upon sales for those considering a Wrangler as family transport, but we expect that Jeep will be quickly working on a suite of improvements for models produced later in this generation’s life cycle.

It’s worth noting that in the detail, the Wrangler offered very good whiplash and side impact protection, and protected the crash test dummy well in the standard offset crash, with points deducted for concerns about the dashboard and A-pillar.

It performed less well in the tougher head-on solid barrier test, which uses smaller dummies to represent a wider scope of occupant. Euro NCAP also assess the ease of fitting child restraint systems, and the range that is easy to install in the Wrangler is quite narrow. Families with young children may want to study the crash test in detail, to see which models of child seat are recommended.

Blindspot monitoring and autonomous braking plus adaptive cruise control are available on higher specification models, though Euro NCAP will not retest the car even if they become standard fit.

• Blindspot monitoring
• Rear cross-traffic alert
• Front and rear park assist
• Electronic roll mitigation
• Four airbags
• Autonomous emergency braking

Buyers of previous-generation Wranglers will note that safety in severe weather is improved by the all-wheel drive system, which allows the use of 4×4 on tarmac now rather than the default of rear-wheel drive except on loose surfaces.

WATCH: Jeep Wrangler SUV Euro NCAP crash test