Maserati SUV

Sergio Marchionne, CEO of the Fiat-Chrysler group has unveiled a few details about Maserati’s future indicating that an SUV will be on the market for 2012 alongside several other key products. The low-key announcement came at this weeks Detroit Motor Show during a radio interview with journalists.

The SUV will most likely be built on a Jeep platform with the Grand Cherokee being the most obvious example. The car will be manufactured in the US alongside other Jeep models and should be ready for market in 2012. The platform will be significantly different to the Grand Cherokee though, spawning a new seven-seat luxury Jeep model alongside it.

Marchionne revealed that the SUV will have Ferrari power either in the form of a V8 or V12 power unit. Price will likely be in the € 70 – 90,000 range.

Maserati also have plans for a Quattroporte replacement and a smaller saloon to compete with the BMW 5-Series and Audi A6.

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7 COMMENTS

  1. Let me get this straight. A Maserati, built by Jeep, powered by Ferrari? That’s got to be the oddest idea yet. Fiat is always cooking up the next mistake. smh. For that matter Chrysler is THE automotive textbook on “shooting yourself in the foot”.

    The sad part is that this isn’t the first time Maserati and Chrysler have teamed up to do something stupid. Here is other dumb stuff they’ve worked on together:

    Chrysler TC by Maserati
    http://www.maserati-alfieri.co.uk/alfieri33.htm

    In 1984, de Tomaso found a friend in Lee Iacocca, the man serving as chairman of Chrysler and responsible for its remarkable comeback from financial disaster. De Tomaso convinced the head of Chrysler to finance the development of a Maserati luxury sports car, with Chrysler selling the cars through its own dealerships.

    Iococca projected sales of between 5,000 to 8,000 of the Maserati-Chrysler sports cars at a minimal price tag of $35,000. Profits would be huge, and the coupe would help to upscale the American car manufacturer’s product line. But the joint venture started off on the wrong foot when de Tomaso and Iococca agreed to place a Chrysler engine in a Maserati body. Combining the worst of both cars, the machine was an engineer’s nightmare. The car was underpowered, there were gaps between the fenders and the doors, the power windows didn’t work well, the chrome trim around the wheel base kept falling away, the car leaked, and the convertible top didn’t fit properly. Maserati employees fought with Chrysler employees about everything, including whether the steering wheel should be natural wood or fake wood grain. All the while, de Tomaso requested more and more money from Chrysler.

    Projected for sale in 1986 and then in 1987, the Maserati Touring Coupe wasn’t close to being finished by the beginning of 1988. Iococca, growing impatient with de Tomaso, sent a team to Milan to assess the situation. The team discovered only 35 of the initial 200 cars manufactured suitable for sale.

    When the Touring Coupe finally arrived in Chrysler showrooms, it looked very similar to the Chrysler LeBaron coupe–but the LeBaron was less than half the price of the Maserati. When the figures were totaled, Chrysler lost nearly $400 million on the joint project with Maserati, and in 1989, after producing a little more than 7,000 of the cars, Iococca decided to end his partnership with de Tomaso.

    http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/Officine-Alfieri-Maserati-SpA-Company-History.html

  2. Well, all current Maseratis are powered by downgraded Ferrari engines, that isn’t new, the GranTurismo engine is a underpowered version of the one in the 430…
    Now, I don’t see a V12 in the front of a Maserati SUV, maybe the V8 of the 458…

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