Jeep base for Alfa SUV

Alfa Romeo is planning to make use of the four-wheel-drive underpinnings of the Jeep Grand Cherokee as the bottom for a second SUV in its line-up, ahead of its deliberate re-entry into the US market in 2013.

Already effectively advanced on a compact BMW X3 rival, based on a four-wheel-drive version of Fiat's C-segment platform, the Italian automotive maker can be making ready a bigger and more upmarket SUV to go up towards the BMW X5, in keeping with its head of development, Harald Wester.

Wester outlined Alfa Romeo’s new model plans in a recent interview. "In 2012 we plan to launch a successor to the 159," he said. "At across the same time we'll introduce a compact SUV. A year later, in 2013, follows a new Spider. After that there can be a good larger SUV."

Nothing has been made official , but insiders say Alfa Romeo's future range-topping model will sit on the same GC-designated platform as the latest Jeep Grand Cherokee - a structure initially developed by DaimlerChrylser that shares parts with the construction used by the Mercedes-Benz M, R and GL-classes.

The large question is whether or not Wester will look to the Jeep Grand Cherokee plant in Detroit, Michigan to supply the big Alfa Romeo SUV or run it down production lines at Magna in Austria. With BMW and Mercedes-Benz already producing the X5 and M-class in North America, the first of those situations is just not with out precedent.

Wester says Alfa Romeo's lengthy-time period purpose is international gross sales of 350,000 - up from simply 120,000 in 2009. Alfa Romeos can be sold through Chrysler dealerships with their very own separate showrooms in the US.