Fiat-Chrysler’s fast-paced product pace has started to catch up, now with the redesign of its highly successful Jeep Grand Cherokee being pushed back to the end of the decade.
According to Reuters, Jeep CEO Mike Manley told reporters Friday the Grand Cherokee would be pushed from 2017 to late 2018 or early 2019. This confirms a report earlier in June that several FCA products would be delayed from the product schedule shown in May 2014.
The current model was unveiled in April 2009, when Chrysler was still owned by Cerberus and just before it went into reorganization and a tie-up with Fiat. Developed during the DaimlerChrysler days, the Grand Cherokee went on sale in summer 2010. Despite the age of the platform, the Grand Cherokee is still one of Jeep’s best-selling models – sales are up 4 percent so far in 2015.
The delay in the Grand Cherokee won’t have an effect on the revived Jeep Grand Wagoneer, Manley told the Detroit Free Press. That model will be based off of the next Grand Cherokee, likely built in the same Detroit factory, but push the Jeep brand into a higher luxury segment with its Range Rover-chasing aspirations.
Plans to produce a redesigned Jeep Wrangler also appear to be on track, Manley said, but the company still isn’t sure where it’s going to be built. Manley said negotiations with the city of Toledo and state of Ohio, where the Wrangler is currently built in a historic Jeep plant, are ongoing.
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