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Ferrari President confirms brand's first SUV for 2019

Published

January 18, 2018

President of Ferrari confirms the brand's first SUV for 2019. (Photo: Disclosure)

According to Sergio Marchionne, executive director of Fiat Chrysler, it will be the fastest vehicle in the segment

Purists may be left with their hair on end. Although Sergio Marchionne, CEO of the FCA group, said that “they will have to shoot me first” when asked about the matter in 2016, things have changed. In an interview with the British weekly AutoExpress, the executive confirmed at the Detroit Motor Show that the Italian brand will indeed launch its first SUV.

But don't expect a tall, beefy Jeep capable of exploring the off-road world. To maintain the Italian myth, it will perform at the height of super sports cars. “So far, the fastest SUV belongs to Alfa,” said the CEO of the FCA group in reference to the Alfa Romeo Stelvio Quadrifoglio, “And I don’t think Ferrari is afraid of Alfa.”

Maranello's target, in fact, is not the Stelvio, but the recently presented Lamborghini Urus, theoretically capable of accelerating from 0 to 100 km/h in 3,6 seconds.

According to Marchionne, we will see the utility vehicle sooner than we thought: at the end of 2019, or beginning of 2020. “I saw the car when I was in Europe eight days ago. We are working on the vehicle, but it is not finished.”

The mechanics must be based on the all-wheel drive system already applied to the old FF and the new GTC4Lusso.

As the last super-luxury brand to enter this segment on the market, Ferrari intends to adopt a separate nomenclature for its utilities: FUV (Ferrari Utility Vehicle). “It will look like what a Ferrari utility vehicle is supposed to look like. But it has to drive like a Ferrari”, he explained.

The initiative has an obvious commercial appeal: it is estimated that a Ferrari SUV could sell up to 2 units per year – a considerable increase compared to the 10 units produced in Maranello today.

By Giovana Rampini/AutoExpress