Maserati Levante for Geneva

Maserati boss Harald Wester has confirmed the company's first SUV will make its production debut at the Geneva Motor Show early next year.

The long-awaited model, which comes after two generations of Kubang SUV concept cars, will be based off the same modular architecture as the Quattroporte and Ghibli sports sedans, although it will only be available in all-wheel drive.

Powered by the same family of Ferrari-built biturbo V6 and V8 petrol engines and the single-turbo VM-built V6 diesel, the Levante will arrive a year ahead of the production version of the Alfieri concept car. Replacements for the GranTurismo and GranCabrio are also under development, although those will be slightly more comfort-oriented to allow the Alfieri to be more hard core.

While the industry rumour mill suggested the Levante would be a rebodied Jeep Grand Cherokee, Wester insisted that was untrue, and that the car would share nothing with any model from other Fiat-Chrysler brands.

The sports-luxury SUV will be positioned between the Ghibli and the Quattroporte in both price and in its wheelbase as part of Maserati's push for 75,000 sales by 2018.

"Of course, it is a real Maserati," Wester said. "Sports and luxury can stand for different things.

"The market has changed and the preference of our customers has changed. The sports car market has slowed down dramatically to 50,000 cars a year. The luxury SUV segment is 10 times that."

Wester and other sources at Maserati also ruled out a smaller SUV, which could have been developed cheaply and quickly on the modular architecture being developed (ironically, inside an engineering skunkworks at Maserati's headquarters) for Alfa Romeo's product push.

The Alfa architecture, which will be first seen beneath the Giulia and will also slot beneath an Alfa Romeo SUV, is not needed by Maserati, they insisted.

"We want a certain volume, but we want to remain relatively exclusive, so we don't need that kind of volume," a Maserati spokesman said.

"It will be a real 100 per cent SUV, and it will be very capable off-road."

That thinking runs directly contrary to the thinking of other European premium brands, which have made merry with smaller SUVs including Porsche's Macan, Audi's Q5, BMW's X3 and, belatedly, Mercedes-Benz's GLC.

The Levante will deliver some of the technology Maserati has been criticised for lacking, including a plug-in hybrid, which will flow across to both the Quattroporte and the Ghibli by 2018.