Jeep 'C SUV' coming to India, to be made locally

With the kind of fan following we have for SUVs in India, Fiat has been considering bringing in the Jeep brand here. But unfortunately it didn’t seem to work out for the Italian brand and the launch kept getting postponed. This time round though, Fiat Chrysler is planning to make India as a hub for manufacturing low-cost SUVs under the Jeep brand.

Fiat Chrysler intends to build a new ‘C SUV’ as it is codenamed and it is expected to be launched in the second quarter of 2017. This has been planned mainly to avoid the steep 180 per cent import duty. Like all other major car manufacturers, Fiat wants to make India the hub for all its operations in South-East Asia. This will not only help them keep the costs in check, but at a later date they might even export these Made in India units to other markets like South Africa, Australia and some other South-East Asian markets.  

Kevin Flynn, president and MD of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles India said that they will introduce the Jeep brand in India at the 2016 Auto Expo in Greater Noida. He also said that they will manufacture the new ‘C SUV’ at the Fiat-Tata joint manufacturing plant in Ranjangaon, Maharashta. To ensure that the facility is up to the standards required for manufacturing a Jeep offering, Fiat will invest $280 million in the Ranjangaon plant. Keeping all in mind, this new C SUV is expected to be priced around Rs 15 lakh. The company will also launch and manufacture this new C SUV in other facilities across the globe, but they will be left-hand drive models.

Source: TNN