Maserati would add a compact crossover to its range, alongside the Levante

Maserati has been very active in the latter part of the year with announcements of the new Quattroporte, as well as the SUV it had already announced with the Kubang concept, later named the Levante. But the Italian brand’s plans don’t stop there, as they also announce the possible development of a compact crossover.

We won’t discover anything new in the fact that many brands are devoting great efforts to creating a segment of SUVs or compact crossovers. But for a brand like Maserati, such a model should be nothing more than a way to compete with its peers; that is, with the Audi Q5 or the Porsche Macan.

According to the brand’s chief designer, Lorenzo Ramaciotti, the new compact SUV would appear in 2016, once the Ghibli compact saloon, the Levante, and the new generations of the Gran Turismo and Gran Cabrio are on the market. The platform to be used for this compact would be the so-called CUSW, the long version of the Compact Wide platform from Fiat, designed for the Dodge Dart or Alfa Romeo Giulia.

The question is what will happen to the SUV that Alfa Romeo already had in its plans, even with a prototype, derived from the Giulietta? Since the idea is not to develop a large SUV for Alfa Romeo, the model could well opt for a compact crossover and be a perfect rival for the Nissan Qashqai, Volkswagen Tiguan or Ford Kuga.

Via | Car and Driver