I generally try to steer clear of speculation and rumor in my podcast. One, because you can basically do that ad nauseam and face no consequences if things turn out to be false and two, because things do so often turn out to be false! So I went out on a limb last week when it was suggested that Fiat and Chrysler might both be pulled at least from the American market if not culled completely in the case of Chrysler and, well, the jury is still out, for Dodge as well. But Chrysler went into detail about virtually every other brand in their stable, so it’s worth taking a look at the future of the littlest of the big three.
First up, Jeep, the crowning jewel of the Fiat Chrysler portfolio and the one brand sort of keeping everything afloat. Forthcoming are the Wagoneer and Grand Wagoneer as well as Trackhawk, Trailhawk and Deserthawk variants of their existing vehicles. While we’re familiar with Trackhawk as being racing circuit-focused and Trailhawk being off-road focused, the Deserthawk trim will be focused on, well, deserts. As we saw with the Rolls Royce Cullinan, desert driving is very popular with Arab oil sheikhs and I guess Jeep thinks they can interest a prince or two in an amply-equipped Cherokee. By 2021, there will be an electrified (meaning hybrid or plug-in hybrid) version of each of its models and by 2022, we’ll finally see the Wrangler Scrambler pickup and two new three row SUVs. So for Jeep at least, they stay the course, just like George H.W. used to say.
For Ram, we’ll get a new mid-sized truck to replace the Dodge Dakota that everyone forgot existed at one point. There will also be new super duty trucks and they’re even making a Ram TRX, which is aimed squarely at Ford’s F-150 Raptor because if there’s one thing the world needs, it’s more obscenely off-road capable pickups that cost more than $60,000. Because when you’re rich, but want to show you’re humble, you spend more than most people’s annual salaries on a pickup that will rarely ever see its bed used. There will also be a new version of their ProMaster City Van, which I can tell you all are super jazzed about.
Moving on to the fun stuff! Alfa Romeo is apparently planning on bringing back the 8C Competizione, but rather than as a grand tourer, as a mid-engined supercar, which, yes please. We only ever got 90 whole 8Cs when they were first made on the Maserati GranTurismo platform but since supercars are selling like IHOP pancakes these days, I’d hope they could spare a few more for our shores. Also coming back is the GTV, which is a fairly historic nameplate, but the rendering looks an awful lot like a coupe version of the Giulia, which itself is not a bad thing. They say the GTV will have 600+ horsepower and the 8C will get 700 or so, which means you can expect to see both vehicles catching on fire shortly after they are released into the wild.
Maserati meanwhile is hoping to challenge both Porsche and Tesla for sales, which, wasn’t that what they were trying to do before? In any case, they’re gonna try to do it way better this time with the Alfieri supercar, a new SUV, and four electric vehicles. Maserati chief Tim Kuniskis said, “From a product standpoint, it may look as if Maserati is challenging Porsche and Tesla. We are. We’re going to accomplish this by bringing the market something no other player in the industry can match.” Except by that he really means they’re going to make pretty cars in segments where other cars already have market share and hope to get by on looks rather than engineering or merit.
As for Chrysler, Fiat and Dodge, they were more conspicuous by their absence than by any news about any of them, so we’ll just have to wait and see if the company is going to embrace the Ford theory of profitability or pivot to something completely different.
Authored by
Devlin Riggs