SPY PICS: Supercharged Jeep spotted

The world’s most powerful SUV is coming Down Under.

That's the only conclusion you can come to following the outing of a right-hand drive example of Jeep's Grand Cherokee Trackhawk by our spy shooters, AutoMedia.

Seen here, completely undisguised, the Jeep Trackhawk will feature the Hellcat supercharged V8 donated from sister brand Dodge's parts bin. With an expected 527kW, the 6.2-litre bent-eight will out-gun any existing SUV and all but a handful of supercars in this country.

With a whopping 880Nm, the mad new SUV is built on the facelifted version of the Grand Cherokee expected Down Under soon. It will debut at next month's New York Auto Show.

In the Big Apple, Jeep is expected to announce a 0-100km/h acceleration time and top speed that will bump the Bentley Bentayga off its perch as "world's fastest SUV".

But it's the right-hand drive development vehicle pictured that's the important step forward as far as Australia is concerned. While local FCA sources have been keen to say the company wants Trackhawk, this is the first confirmation that their wish-list has been met.

Australia is the largest right-hand drive (RHD) Jeep market in the world by a margin and accounts for the lion's share of RHD Grand Cherokee production. Simply, Jeep would not build a right-hand drive Trackhawk unless it was coming to Oz.

"We're interested, definitely," Jeep Australia spokesman Glenn Butler side-stepped when quizzed today by motoring.com.au.

"Australians have a strong affiliation with Jeep and the Grand Cherokee, and the SRT performance variant adds that V8 appeal Aussies also love so much," observed Butler.

"So if there were a model packing even more performance appeal, we'd do everything within our power to bring it to Australia," he stated.

Pricing on the new Trackhawk model for Australia is no doubt being negotiated currently but it's unclear how much more it will cost than the ‘regular’ $90,000 Grand Cherokee SRT, whose naturally-aspirated 6.4-litre V8 generates a very healthy 344kW.

Our tip is don't expect anything less than six figures.

US deliveries of the new Jeep Trackhawk are expected to begin in late 2017, and if it gets the green-light Down Under sooner rather than later, we could see it here early in 2018.