Don't hold your breath for Jeep one-tonner

One of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles' most senior product planners has made it explicitly clear a metric one-tonne pick-up is not a priority for Jeep or any other brand member of the group.

Speaking to motoring.com.au only days after Mercedes-Benz had announced its intention to launch a Toyota HiLux rival by 2020, Steve Bartoli poured cold water on the prospect of FCA following suit.

"We have other pressing product opportunities that in my view outweigh the product opportunity of a metric one-tonne truck, whether it's a Chrysler, a Dodge, a Jeep or whatever," he said.

"That is not high up on my priority list right now. Continuing the Jeep momentum we have created ... that is really important to the company and that is really our priority."

Bartoli is the Asia-Pacific product planning chief for all FCA brands – Alfa Romeo, Chrysler, Dodge, Fiat, Fiat Professional, Jeep and RAM – as well as international product planning boss for the Chrysler group brands.

He was speaking to motoring.com.au during his first ever visit to Australia and FCA's local outpost. Among the reasons for his visit were gaining a better understanding of the Australian pick-up market and whether the RAM 1500 would work here; and right-hand drive conversion of performance V8s; and the possible need to conduct local chassis development tuning.

Jeep has shown a number of Wrangler-based ute concepts in the past, including the Gladiator pictured here, but the possibility of FCA developing a metric one-tonner has been a constant source of speculation in Australian motoring media, usually fuelled by interviews with Jeep global boss and avowed pick-up fan Mike Manley at motor shows, when motoring.com.au last reported on the issue.

Bartoli's focus on growing Jeep is understandable, as the FCA Group's 2014-18 START business plan calls for the SUV brand to grow from 700,000 global sales in 2014 to 1.9 million in 2018.

There is a significant number of new and overhauled models coming to achieve that, including the B-segment Renegade this year, a C-segment CX-5 rival in 2016, new Wrangler and Grand Cherokee in 2017 and the seven-seat Grand Wagoneer in 2018.

Bartoli said a Jeep pick-up wasn't "very far right now" up the priority list.

"To me, making sure Jeep brand is strong around the world [is the priority]... We have done a lot of great work on that and we could still do a lot more."

Nevertheless Bartoli made it clear that FCA group was mulling over the one-tonner proposition and was conscious of its appeal. But he said the negatives were significant too.

"It would be the second largest truck market in the world – I think it's over two million when you look at it including Brazil, Europe and the whole gamut," he said. "The truck market in the US is like 2. 2 million, so in that respect it is a big opportunity.

"But then you have to say 'where is it strong?' Well right now it's strong in places where we are not. It's not for us strictly a product decision, it really is a total business decision; it's product, it's network, its industrialisation. So it's not the simplest thing.

"We could design the platform – that's not the issue. It's a total business decision we would have to make and how we want to best approach it."

Bartoli said an FCA commitment to a pick-up could even "potentially" mean having to build a factory in Thailand, which is the global centre of metric one-tonne manufacturing with free-trade agreements providing market access throughout the region including Australia.

"That is the hub of the whole thing, there are lots of regulatory conditions and things like this that have set up the market," he said.

"You have to get into the duty structure and the specifications because it is very, very defined by the Thai government what a metric tonne truck is ... from the product perspective and then there are all kinds of duties and excise tax stipulations that go against those things.

"Just because everyone is in Thailand that does not mean we need to do the same thing," he added. "But we still need to be cognisant of the specifications that set up the product in the first place."