Monday, February 25, 2013
By Shilpa Chopra
Fiat to produce Maserati Levante in Italy, shuns US production plans
What is that can help Italian car maker Maserati achieve its target of selling more than 50K cars by 2015? It surely is the new SUV Maserati Levante that was unveiled at the 2012 Detroit Motor Show. Earlier, the car maker intended to manufacture the Jeep Cherokee in US but now it seems that parent Fiat may take this car manufacturing to its hometown only. Better known as Kubang, the Italian SUV Levante also rocked the Beijing Motor Show and remained a heartthrob of all the visitors. The decision to shift the production to Italy seems to be taken in the light of high demand for Jeep Cherokee and the car maker will never like to dampen its own product with that of other.
Another important factor that has prompted the shift in production is the high demand for the Cherokee and that is why there is no room for production of the Levante in Michigan. The new Cherokee has been a success and the car maker therefore cannot short its supply in order to accommodate Levante. It is said that the dealers in US have been complaining about not enough Cherokee being supplied to them. Whereas the demand is high the US dealers are reeling due to short supply of Cherokee and in such a situation, over crowding the already populated facility would be unwise.
Meanwhile, India also awaits the launch of Jeep Cherokee and the Jeep Wrangler SUVs in India as the Italian car maker has promised to launch these cars in this year. It is believed that these cars will be changing the way people treated SUVs in India as there will be a radical transformation in the standards and benchmarks that defines sports utility cars in India. Fiat is expected to launch the new 2014 version of Grand Cherokee in India.
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