2018 Jeep Wrangler Rubicon: A Superhero Looking for a Mission

SOME CARS spend their lives waiting to be a hero. The average Lamborghini can go 200 mph but most of the time it just sits there in the garage, reeking depreciation. But on that one special night when you have to get your pregnant wife, or girlfriend, or both, to the ospedale in a hurry, the Lambo stands up like a boss.

Those lift-kit pickups belching diesel smoke and whomping down the highway on 36-inch beadlocks? Useless. But when Houston flooded, hundreds of those explicitly stupid vehicles suddenly looked brilliant, wading...