2014 Jeep Wrangler Rubicon on 2040-cars

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Why Mopar won't release a factory lift kit for the new Jeep Cherokee

The Jeep Cherokee Dakar concept showed off at the 2014 Easter Jeep Safari made a lot of online friends, even the Cherokee naysayers assenting that there's a monster Jeep underneath the Cherokee's skin if you're willing to go in and get it. But after reading Road & Track's write-up of what went into creating the Dakar, particularly its lift, you'll understand why you'll probably never see the components for it in the Jeep Performance Parts catalog.
The concept's press release mentions a "prototype Jeep Performance Parts lift kit, and additional suspension modifications." The short-story explanation is that the front struts on the standard Cherokee weren't engineered to accept any amount of lift, so the long story begins with the phrase, "an entirely new suspension." Head over to RT to read the details, and don't be afraid to ogle the Cherokee Dakar gallery and another awesome Jeep fancy that won't likely crawl over the hurdles imposed by production reality.

Daily Driver: 2015 Jeep Wrangler Unlimited X Edition

Daily Driver videos are micro-reviews of vehicles in the Autoblog press fleet, reviewed by the staffers that drive them every day. Today's Daily Driver features the 2015 Jeep Wrangler Unlimited X Edition, reviewed by Adam Morath. You can watch the video above or read a transcript below. Watch more Autoblog videos at /videos. VIDEO TRANSCRIPT Hi, I'm Adam Morath for Autoblog. Now, undoubtedly, one of the coolest things about this job is that you're in and out of so many different vehicles, but, I'll be honest, there are times where, if you're in very similar vehicles, they can start to run together a little bit. That's why I love getting into a car like this that just snaps you right out of it because it's so unique and so different from anything else on the market. Of course I'm talking about the Jeep Wrangler. I'm in a 2015 Jeep Wrangler Unlimited. This is the X Edition, which stands for X Games. Jeep is a big title sponsor of the 2015 Aspen X Games and you can see that all over this vehicle. You have white, glossy accent plastic in the interior; mountain graphics throughout the interior and exterior of the vehicle – a nod, obviously, to the winter sports and skiing that you would do out in Aspen. And then in keeping with that mountainous theme, you have an Alpine nine-stereo speaker system. I'll be honest, though, that some of it feels a little overdone to me. For instance, there's a power-bulge in the hood. Credit to Jeep: the vents are actually functional, but this is not the trim I would go for, just personally. It's one of those vehicles that people are always wondering, "I really like the look of it [and] I like the capability, but could I live with a Wrangler?" It's the same sort of question you'll get from people who are looking at a sports car, "could I actually live with this is my daily driver?" And I have to say, Jeep has come a long way – Wrangler, in particular, has come a long way – in terms of driving comfort. Of course, don't expect "Lexus quiet." You can probably hear it's a big noisy in the cabin. It's a bit of a bumpy ride. There are things about this vehicle that I could see being annoying in your day-to-day life. For instance, the door: it's essentially an external hinge on the door, but it doesn't stay open for you. So, if you're on any sort of a tilt, the door will come back in and you have to just prop it open with your leg. Little things like that.

YouTube tallies votes for this year's top five Super Bowl spots [w/video]

When we asked you to tell us which of this year's 16 car-themed Super Bowl commercials you liked best, you chose the Farmer commercial from Chrysler Group, advertising the Ram trucks, over Audi's Prom commercial in second place. Turns out the voters in YouTube's Ad Blitz poll agreed, voting the same commercial to the number one spot from among the field commercials in every category.
From there, however, they went in a totally different direction. Budweiser's The Clydesdales spot came second, Samsung's The Next Big Thing took third. The Jeep Whole Again ad scored fourth in the YouTube poll, fifth in our poll of auto commercials, and the Hyundai Team spot got fifth from the YouTubers, but ninth in our poll.
The voting results don't match up with the viewing numbers, though - while Farmer has more than 13 million views, The Next Big Thing is well beyond 21 million. You can read the press release below and see all five spots, lined up for you, one more time.