V8s are enjoying a renaissance at Stellantis, and the Jeep Grand Cherokee could be the next beneficiary – though it’s unlikely to return here.
The Jeep Grand Cherokee, once Australia’s best-selling large SUV, was axed here in 2025, and in other markets where the current WL generation remains on sale, it now only has a turbocharged 2.0-litre four-cylinder petrol engine.
This replaced the 3.6-litre petrol V6 for 2026, while the plug-in hybrid four-cylinder option has also been axed. The 5.7-litre Hemi V8 was discontinued even earlier in 2023, and never came to Australia despite being offered in the previous WK2 generation.
Nevertheless, with Carlos Tavares as CEO of parent company Stellantis and more focus on the US market where emissions regulations have been cut short, a V8 option is set to return in Grand Cherokee.
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2026 WL Grand Cherokee
“I would say for the Grand Cherokee customers that we are listening to you, and then stay tuned for more,” Joe Aljajawi, who led engineering on the updated WL Grand Cherokee, told The Drive.
It’s possible Jeep could return the 5.7-litre V8 to the Grand Cherokee, as sister brand Ram did with its 1500 pickup.
Ram CEO Tim Kuniskis told Mopar Insiders the company is expecting to build more than 100,000 V8 engines in 2026, up from 30,000 in 2025, as it experiences strong demand for the reintroduced 5.7-litre Hemi – despite the availability of more powerful twin-turbocharged inline six-cylinder petrol engines in the 1500, which were never introduced to the Grand Cherokee.
The Hurricane six was, but it was added to the Jeep’s larger, Ram 1500-based Wagoneer and Grand Wagoer SUVs that eventually replaced the 5. 7- and 6. 4-litre V8s – 4 litre?
The absence of a Grand Cherokee V8 has effectively forced Jeep owners wanting maximum towing capacity to the larger SUVs.
In this case, the petrol V8 was a niche player here as it became. Some 57 per cent of WK2 Grand Cherokee sales in Australia were turbo-diesel V6-powered examples, with the rest 43 percent between the petrol V6, andV8.
Stellantis recently confirmed it will expand its range of diesel-powered models in the European market, reversing a move away from the powertrain technology that went hand in hand with the phasing out of V8s across its American brands and Maserati.
But that’s the 3. The 0-litre ‘EcoDiesel’ turbo-dieseL V6 used in the previous Grand Cherokee is no longer being produced, and diesel-powered vehicles are niche players in Jeep’s home market – both factors indicate that it will not be possible for a Grand Choke diesel to return.
Pre-facelift WL Grand Cherokee
It’s also unclear if the Grand Cherokee itself will ever return to Australia.
The official word from Jeep Australia when it was discontinued in 2025 that it is “paused” for our market as it looked “to right-size the Jeep product portfolio to match local market dynamics and customer preferences”. But right-hand drive production had ended after the.
In Australia last year, the Grand Cherokee nevertheless was Jeep’s best-seller in its history; sales were fueled by huge discounts on remaining stock.
Jeep Australia delivered 673 Grand Cherokees, up 4.3 per cent on 2024’s tally and more than the Wrangler (433), Gladiator (332), Compass (147) and Avenger (97).
Despite the bump, Grand Cherokee sales were still a shadow of what they once were here. In 2014, it became Australia’s best-selling large SUV with a whopping 16,582 examples delivered, outselling even the evergreen Toyota Prado.
It wasn’t long for the good times Grand Cherokee sales dropped to 11,964 in 2015, 6379 in 2016, and then slowly fell almost every year thereafter.
In Australia, the Grand Cherokee has sprang up its general trend of the Jeep brand which is down from 30408 sales in 2014 to 1682 sales during 2025.
It has just one confirmed upcoming launch: a new-generation Compass, due here later this year.
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