Indian-built Jeeps for Oz from 2018

Bollywood, chipatis, sacred cows and Jeep cars may sound like a misappropriation of an old GM jingo, but it will soon ring true if Fiat Chrysler Automobiles Australia has its way.

FCAA believes the company’s new production facilities in the region — primarily India — will provide the local arm with an ample supply of Jeep products from 2018.

Speaking to motoring.com this week, FCAA President and CEO Pat Dougherty said the Ranjangaon plant in India will have excess capacity that can be used to serve export markets including Australia.

“Some of the product coming out of that plant will be for our market — that will be really exciting,” he confirmed.

FCA announced on July 1 its intention to invest about $US280 million in its manufacturing joint-venture, Fiat India Automobiles Private Limited, with Tata Motors Limited.

The Ranjangaon facility has produced Tata and Fiat products – including the Punto – since 2006, but is expected to begin production of a Jeep product in the second quarter of 2017.

FCA has not revealed which Jeep model will be produced in India, but one possibility is the new Renegade, a new entry model built in Italy alongside the Fiat 500X, which also due on sale here later this year. Both compact SUVs are key planks in FCAA's plan to more than double sales by 2018.

Jeep is not present in India, which some analysts expect to become the world's third-largest car market behind China and the US by 2020, but the iconic US off-road brand will launch in the world second most populous nation this year with the Cherokee and Wrangler.

Dougherty highlighted the similarities of this plan with a well-worn path taken by another manufacturer, Ford, which imports the EcoSport compact SUV from India.

"It’s a similar strategy to what Ford does today," he said. "Ford builds product in India and ships over here, and ships to different parts of Asia, because they built a plant as well, and plant capacity was underutilised. Now it’s become an export plant for them. So we’ll do something similar."

Dougherty believes that the plant’s excess capacity will provide Australia with ample stock.

“I don’t think it has been utilised to its full capacity as most manufacturers built there. They anticipated the market coming together there much more quickly, like China’s did, but India’s hasn’t come together quite as fast -- but it will."

However, India may not always be an export hub, Dougherty warned.

“In some point in time the Indian market will grow to a point where that plant will sustain itself -- for India.”

If this occurs, Dougherty said Australia may have another card up its sleeve -- China.

FCA has a new joint-venture in China to build Jeeps. GAC Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (GFC), the existing joint-venture between FCA and Guangzhou Automobile Group (GAC), announced on July 16 that it will form a new company, GAC Fiat Chrysler Automobiles Sales.

GAC and FCA will start Jeep Cherokee production in China by the end of this year, with two additional Jeep models to join the Chinese Cherokee by the end of 2016, meaning that within two years Jeep will have assembly plants in the US, Brazil, Italy, China and India.

“We're building the Cherokee there [in China] and that will expand to other models going forward. We’re very excited about that because it represents an opportunity for us,” said Dougherty.