Jeep Grand Cherokee to Spawn Maserati SUV

It was only a matter of time, and everyone knew that, before the two companies which joined their destinies last year, Fiat and Chrysler, began sharing platforms and creating cross breeds previously thought unlikely.

One of the first major transplant of platform from one carmaker to the other will result in the creation of the first Maserati SUV. The platform in question, the one on which the Grand Cherokee was built, has been named “a great architecture” by Fiat's CEO, Sergio Marchionne, and dubbed the best choice for it to spawn a Maserati SUV.

"The Grand Cherokee architecture has legs. It's important for us to tap all of the hard work that has gone on inside Chrysler on the new Grand Cherokee,” Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne said in the beginning of the month, when the news first broke. “It has a level of solidity and resilience that we have underestimated.”

What's even more intriguing is that Fiat will not try an adapt the production lines in Italy or elsewhere to manufacture the SUV, but will use Chrysler's Jefferson North assembly plant for the task.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the SUV will make its big entrance in 2013. It is too early yet to say what engines will power the SUV or whether they will be of American or Italian origin. Some even speculate that the inbreeding of Fiat-Chrysler brands will go even further and the Ferrari-built 4.2l or a 4.7l V8 will power the Maserati SUV built by Chrysler in the US.