As I stepped out of Ford’s new 2024 Mustang Dark Horse to capture a few photos this week, I was greeted by a thick wall of heat and humidity, thanks to the 100-degree temperatures in Charlotte, North Carolina. Retreating back to civilized temperatures, aka the car with the A/C cranked to “LO”, I quietly pondered the kinds of transportation we would need to fjord the literal heat and storms forecasted for our future. Sure, the hot, damp North Carolina climate and surroundings may require something very different from say, the oven-baking temperatures in the desert of Arizona. But if the climate apocalypse is to come, we’re gonna need something to get us through whatever Mother Nature has deemed our new hard mode of living on her Earth.
Some of you might envision the perfect car for the raging storms would be some apocalypse-ready vehicle straight out of Mad Max, which would certainly make for a viable option. But we can also be practical and use things we already have on the road right now. For myself, my ‘22 Jeep Wrangler Unlimited is looking pretty good. Sure, the 22-24 mpg combine I typically average on it is far from ideal, but fuel economy won’t be my top concern when it comes to tackling a climate catastrophe. Ok, maybe that’s naive of me because who knows how long we’ll have access to gasoline. And we already know it doesn’t last forever.
What the Wrangler does have going for it, is that it belongs to a handful of vehicles that can tackle most anything — from off-roading or (also handy in Michigan) fjording small bodies of water. And if and when the A/C finally gives out many, many years down the road (we can’t recharge it because society has collapsed and those types of amenities are banned/don’t even exist) those body-colored roof panels or doors are mighty easy to take off in a variety of combinations for maximum cooling while in motion.
But I am but one human with one ok opinion on this, and as we at Jalopnik have learned over the years, you, our readers, get mighty creative with your answers. So, let me know what your ideal climate apocalypse vehicle is in the comments. Make us proud.