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The setting might have been Fiats Balocco test facility, but the day belonged to Jeep and its management. From president and CEO, Mike Manley downwards, there was a raft of senior execs from Jeep getting their first opportunity to sell the iconic brand to a selection of European and British journalists. Its obvious theres a massive enthusiasm for the new partnership and the opportunities it can deliver as Steve Batolli, head of international product planning for Jeep, explained to me: Its really refreshing, Fiat has the approach that we can get things done pretty rapidly. There are open doors on each side with a real desire to get the best [technology] from one another. I am really impressed with the speed of technology transfer; its very encouraging and ten times faster than with Mercedes. The latest Grand Cherokee is the first car out of the alliance with Fiat and its plant is the first Chrysler assembly facility to adopt Fiats world class standards following a total of 45,000 hours of employee training. Manley revealed that a new B segment SUV, likely to be spun off Fiat underpinnings, will be launched in 2013 and assembled in both the States and Italy. That year will also see an all-new Grand Cherokee and a face-lifted Patriot/Compass. All future ranges will include a Trail Rated model, true to the Jeep DNA. Matters are no less busy at Fiat with a new Panda arriving before the end of this year and Maserati developing a BMW 5-Series challenger as it strives to increase its global sales footprint. Alfa Romeo will come to the States first with the 4C launched at Geneva last March followed by an SUV, even Maserati gets in on the SUV trend with its own spin-off in 2014 and we already know that the new Lancia Thema will be underpinned by the latest 300C platform.
