Jeep flagship uncertain for Oz

Jeep's long-awaited Grand Wagoneer will go head to head with prestige brands like Range Rover, Jeep Brand CEO Mike Manley has told British motor mag Auto Express.

Manley, who is also Fiat Chrysler Automobiles' COO in the Asia-Pacific region – meaning Australia falls under his purview – apparently wouldn't discuss with the Auto Express scribe whether the Grand Wagoneer, which is due to arrive in global markets from 2018, will be engineered for right-hand drive.

When the question was put to Alan Swanson, Senior Manager, PR & Communications for Chrysler, Jeep and Dodge in Australia, he replied: "As far as I know there hasn't been any further discussion about Grand Wagoneer, and if it will exist for Australia at all."

Our feeling, based on the strength of the Jeep brand in Australia – over 30,000 sold last year, with the current flagship Grand Cherokee contributing over half – is that it wouldn't make sense NOT to build the Grand Wagoneer in right-hand drive. It especially wouldn't make sense when the Grand Wagoneer is reputed to offer three-row seating, as motoring.com.au reported late last year. Seven seats are a packaging element the Grand Cherokee sorely lacks.

Manley did confirm the Grand Wagoneer would be sold in Europe, but his lips were sealed on the subject of drivetrain options for the large SUV. Apparently the success of the Grand Cherokee SRT-8 in North America has proved to Jeep management that the brand can operate there in upmarket SUV segments, which is anything above USD $45,000.

According to Manley, Jeep is seeing its North American transaction prices gradually lifting. That has given the company the confidence to forge ahead with the development of the Grand Wagoneer, which Auto Express speculates could draw on Maserati engines in the works for the Levante, including 3.0-litre diesel V6 and turbocharged 3.8-litre petrol V8.

Swanson couldn't say off the top of his head whether that trend is also emerging in Australia, but did say that he felt Jeep was better equipped to tackle upmarket brands since the advent of the current (WK) Grand Cherokee than at any time prior.

"Certainly, you can see from the products that we've been very successful with here are things like Grand Cherokee, of course..." he told motoring.com.au this morning.

"Things like the latest Grand Cherokee Summit Platinum is another step towards being a valid alternative to the premium European brands...

"It comes down to the fact that the Grand Cherokee offers pretty much everything that people are looking for, when they're shopping against the European alternatives to that."

Price is a factor in that, of course, and that runs contrary to the promotion of Jeep as a prestige brand, but actual off-road ability is important too. In the case of Jeep, one balances out the other, and compensates for any perception the Grand Cherokee is lacking the quality or all-round capability of its prestige competitors. A vehicle upmarket from the Grand Cherokee would almost certainly match at least some of its prestige rivals for off-road ability.

In Australia, even if the Grand Wagoneer should be positioned above the Toyota LandCruiser 200 Series in terms of VFACTS market segmentation and pricing – assuming it does come here – buyers might still feel inclined to cross-shop the two vehicles. In those circumstances, exotic drivetrain components from Maserati wouldn't necessarily help Jeep dealers win retail business against their cross-town rivals at Toyota.

An affordable, practical engine at entry level, at least, would be very important in the Grand Wagoneer range – something that Swanson observes is definitely true of the Grand Cherokee.

"The very popular engine in the Grand Cherokee line-up is of course the 3.0-litre diesel engine," he said, but he wouldn't be drawn on the engine options for Grand Wagoneer. "It's really a bit early in the stage to make any sort of guess as to what the drivetrain line-up will be."

However, Swanson did agree in a hypothetical sense that a vehicle like the Grand Wagoneer could offer a range of engines – everything from the el cheapo diesel that serious off-roaders want (and Nissan lacks in its Y62 Patrol... to its own detriment), up to a glorious, large-displacement, forced-induction petrol V8. And FCA is well placed to draw on global resources to cover that spectrum.

"The thing that we're benefiting from in the last year or so – and obviously in the future – is that the Fiat/Chrysler Group as a whole has a huge amount of resource from the different drivetrains that we have..." Swanson said.

In other news, Manley mentioned that the replacement for the Compass and Patriot medium SUVs will be launched globally next year. Previously, motoring.com.au has been told that this new model will be based on the Giulietta platform, and Manley has now confirmed that it will be one model to replace the two current models. As is currently the case, the new C-Segment Jeep will be offered in front- and four-wheel drive variants.

Manley offered little further information concerning the Patriot replacement, even leaving some doubt as to whether it would follow the Cherokee or the Renegade in its styling. The Cherokee, which was reportedly penned for a softer look to appeal to European buyers, is far removed from the Wrangler-like boxiness of the Renegade. How the C-segment model will turn out is likely to depend on where Jeep expects to sell the most – Europe or North America. If it's the former, the new model will align more closely with the Cherokee's look.

Picture courtesy of Christopher Ziemnowicz via Wikimedia Commons