Jeep Renegade spied testing in India; launch expected soon

After years of waiting, Fiat finally announced the launch of the Jeep brand with the Grand Cherokee and the Wrangler at the 2016 Auto Expo in Greater Noida, earlier this month. It was announced that the sales of Jeep will begin in mid-2016 with the Grand Cherokee available only as the SRT variant; but what was not let known to us was that Jeep also had another trick up its sleeve for India. It all became clear once the Renegade was spotted testing in the Delhi recently. 

The American carmaker is set to introduce the Wrangler in India as its entry-level offering and will jump into the newly-popular SUV segment in the country. When originally unveiled in 2014, the car came with a 1.6-litre petrol and a 2.0-litre Multijet diesel motor with a six-speed manual or a nine-speed automatic box. 

Amid the diesel car ban in the NCR, it will be interesting to see if the carmaker chooses to bring this engine to India. However, chances of it developing an engine specially for India are also equally unlikely. 

Meanwhile, according to the import data received from an online portal, the Renegade will cost around Rs. 18-20 lakh in India.

While the Renegade looks like a project for the far future, we expect more news further in 2016 when the other models of the company will be up for grabs. A local production model has also been mulled, as a result of which we could see a completely made in India product by as early as 2017.