Can You Picture A Jeep In A Fine Italian Suit And A Ferrari Engine?

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If there is one thing that has held true at Chrysler over the years, it is the sanctity of the iconic Jeep brand. Even in bankruptcy last year, Chrysler did not cut corners on development of a replacement for Jeep’s flagship Grand Cherokee. The new version, recently launched, has been greeted with rave reviews and sales are running about double the rate of its predecessor.

The new Grand Cherokee is so great, in fact, that Italy’s Fiat Auto, which now controls Chrysler, wants to use its underpinnings to create more luxurious, high-performance SUVs for Alfa Romeo and even Maserati.

“We’ve underestimated it,” chief executive Sergio Marchionne said in praise of the quality and versatility of the engineering architecture beneath the Grand Cherokee. “We need to be able to extend it and use it properly.” Already, Chrysler is using the Grand Cherokee platform as the basis for the next-generation Dodge Durango, previously built on a pickup-truck frame. It debuts later this year.

But Marchionne has even more plans for the platform under the Fiat umbrella, which spans from tiny Fiat city cars to Ferrari sports cars. By adding more powerful engines and luxury features consistent with a much higher-priced brand, the Grand Cherokee platform can be transformed into a high-performance European SUV, he said.

“Adding Ferrari powertrains to the architecture is real,” he told analysts and reporters on a conference call Monday. “Certainly it gives us a unique opportunity to use all the work that is done and extend it to areas where it was never intended.” The SUVs would most likely be sold under the Alfa Romeo and Maserati brands, he said.

Jeep purists might cringe, but the good news is that those souped-up European SUVs would likely be built at the same inner-city Detroit factory where the Grand Cherokee and Durango are produced, meaning more American jobs. Marchionne said the vehicles could begin production in 12 to 18 months.

Here’s the kicker: that highly praised engineering platform in the Grand Cherokee is actually a modified Mercedes-Benz platform, a legacy of Chrysler’s failed marriage with Germany’s Daimler AG. So Marchionne is getting Mercedes engineering at a Chrysler price (which, if you remember from last year’s bankruptcy, was zero.)

That Marchionne is a shrewd guy


http://blogs.forbes.com/joannmuller/...errari-engine/.