Wyatt Knox strapped into a 470-horsepower Jeep Wrangler Rubicon 392 Xtreme Recon, pointed it down a snow-covered rally stage, and did exactly what you’d hope someone would do with a long-wheelbase, solid-axle truck on a technical course. He sent it.
The Team O’Neil driver posted a 2:26.34 over the 1.25-mile course, a time that lands somewhere between heroic and inadvisable. For context, even a Ford F-450 Super Duty managed a quicker run on that same course, albeit without snow. Against other winter times, however, the Wrangler held its own.
The truck wore studded Nokian Hakkapeliittas, arguably the gold standard in winter rubber. Running in 4-Hi with Off-Road Plus mode engaged, Knox still had no trouble lighting up all four tires whenever he wanted. A 6.4-liter Hemi doesn’t care about traction settings.
The real enemy wasn’t horsepower or the Wrangler’s considerable heft and height. It was ABS. Knox couldn’t disable it, which meant the truck’s natural tendency to understeer, amplified by the four-door Unlimited’s long wheelbase and solid front axle, became the dominant handling characteristic.
Rally drivers typically use left-foot braking and trail braking to rotate a car into corners. The Wrangler’s electronics fought that instinct at every turn.
Knox compensated by using throttle to kick the tail out, then braking and downshifting in straight lines, treating the stage more like a circuit than a proper rally course. It worked, but it wasn’t pretty. His own assessment after climbing out was telling: fun, but he wouldn’t want to do it again.
That’s the kind of review money can’t buy, and it’s more honest than anything in a press kit.
Team O’Neil has made a cottage industry of throwing absurd vehicles at its rally stage — Super Dutys, Kia Sedonas, the kind of stuff that has no business being timed on a competitive course. The Wrangler 392 is actually less ridiculous than most of those experiments. It was at least engineered to go fast in a straight line, even if Jeep never intended anyone to use that capability between snow banks on a one-lane trail in New Hampshire.
The timing of the video is notable. Just a year ago, the Wrangler 392 looked finished. Jeep had signed what appeared to be a death warrant for its V8 experiment.
Then the market, or maybe just stubbornness, intervened. For 2026, Jeep expanded the 392 lineup to include Moab and Willys trims alongside the Rubicon, with the Willys coming in roughly $30,000 cheaper than the 2025 Rubicon 392. That’s a price cut that suddenly makes a V8 Wrangler accessible to buyers who previously couldn’t justify the spend.
It’s a strange trajectory for a vehicle that was supposed to be dead. The Wrangler 392 now has more trim levels than ever, arriving at a moment when electrification is supposedly the only path forward for every automaker on Earth. Jeep already sells the 4xe plug-in hybrid Wrangler. It chose to keep selling the Hemi too.
Knox’s rally run won’t change anyone’s mind about whether a V8 Wrangler makes sense. It was never supposed to make sense. A two-and-a-half-ton truck with 37-inch tires sliding sideways through a frozen forest is not a rational proposition. It is, however, a deeply entertaining one, and apparently there’s still a market for that.
Share this Story