Jeep Wrangler

Sit in the Wrangler before you even turn the key and you already know what you're in for. The seat's upright, the dash is flat and boxy, grab handles bolted everywhere because someone in Detroit knew you'd need them.

Thumb the start button and the 3.6-litre V6 rattles awake — 285 horsepower, 260 lb-ft of torque, nothing fancy, just grunt you can lean on. Pick your gearbox: 8-speed automatic for lazy highway miles, 6-speed manual if you like doing the work yourself.

Doors off. Roof off. Windshield folded flat if you're feeling brave. That's the whole point of a Wrangler — open-air driving with dirt on the tires and grit on the seats before you've even left the pavement. Five people fit, though nobody rents a Wrangler for legroom. They rent it for the trail, for the wave from other Jeep owners at a stoplight, for the fact that it still looks like the original even decades later.

It's not sleek. It's not trying to be. It's a box on wheels built to get scratched, muddy, and loved a little too hard. Take it off-road, take it to the beach, take it wherever the pavement gives up and gets interesting.