We’d told you at the beginning of this week, that FCA India has started the bookings of the new Jeep Compass SUV in India. It’s just been about three days and the company has already said that it has received an overwhelming response. 1000 bookings of the Compass SUV have already been made and that’s too in just 3 days. With pre-bookings opened online as well as at Jeep India dealerships for a sum of ₹ 50,000, the Compass seems to have captured a lot of attention, as much as we were when we drove the SUV earlier this month.
The Compass SUV was first unveiled in India a couple of months ago and of course is manufactured at the company’s FCA plant in Ranjangaon. In fact it is the first Jeep to be manufactured in India. The localisation levels on the car are up to 80 per cent and the car will be exported to right hand drive markets like Japan, UK and South Africa by the end of this year. The heavy localisation also means that the price of the Jeep Compass will be very competitive, which is one reason why we see the kind of attention its getting.
The Jeep Compass will go on sale in August
There’s been a lot of hard work gone behind making the Compass in India and it took just 23 months for FCA India to get the facility up and running. There was a significant investment of $280 million made into the plant and from what we can notice, Jeep’s first made-in-India SUV has successfully managed to grab the attention of the people.
Under the hood, the Jeep Compass features two engine – a 1.4-litre 4-cylinder turbocharged petrol and a 2-litre 4-cylinder turbocharged diesel motor. The petrol engine makes over 160 bhp and 260 Nm of peak torque and oil burner churns out over 170 bhp and 350 Nm of peak torque. Transmission duties are handled by a 6-speed manual unit and an optional 7-speed automatic gearbox. The Jeep Compass will get a four-wheel-drive system, which will get Jeep’s terrain response system. The driving modes will include Snow, Sand and Rock options, which change the characteristics of the power delivery and drive dynamics of the SUV. It’s a capable off-roader as we found out when we drove the car and that’s another big USP for the car.
[“source-auto.ndtv”]