The 2003 Maserati Kubang SUV Concept
Fiat boss Sergio Marchionne has confirmed that there will be a Maserati SUV based on the Grand Cherokee chassis
The idea of an SUV from every luxury maker seemed a dead cert a few years ago. And then the world went in to financial meltdown and the eco-mentalists convinced a chunk of the car buying public that SUVs were the spawn of the devil, which put the kybosh on the nascent plans of many a car maker.
But the recession hasn’t quite turned in to a depression (unless you’re one of the poor countries sucked in to the German Euro Zone), and many are now waking up to the fact that SUVs aren’t killing the planet and that CO2 is actually beneficial to planet earth, not harmful.
So we’re starting to see the rumblings of new SUVs from car makers who haven’t yet grabbed a piece of the SUV action. A week or three back we reported that Lamborghini were flirting with a new SUV and now comes confirmation that Maserati will have an SUV on the market before long.
Fiat boss Sergio Marchionne – in conversation with the WSJ – asked the rhetorical question ‘Why wouldn’t I put a Maserati on it?’ when talking about the apparently very good 2011 Jeep Grand Cherokee. Which makes a lot of sense. The Cherokee already has the same underpinnings as the Mercedes ML, so if it can cope with the ML63 with reasonable alacrity it should have no problem even if Maserati drop in their own V8 instead of Chrysler’s.
Sadly, the Maserati SUV will be built in the US, not Italy. But these days that really shouldn’t matter.
Although it does.
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