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.
However, with Carlos Tavares out as the CEO of parent company Stellantis, and a greater focus on the US market where emissions regulations have been weakened, a V8 option is poised to return to the Grand Cherokee.
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“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, however, added to the Jeep’s even larger, Ram 1500-based Wagoneer and Grand Wagoneer SUVs, eventually supplanting the 5.7- and 6.4-litre V8s.
The absence of a Grand Cherokee V8 has effectively forced Jeep owners wanting maximum towing capacity to the larger SUVs.
Here, the petrol V8 was a niche player. Around 57 per cent of WK2 Grand Cherokee sales in Australia were of turbo-diesel V6-powered examples, with the remaining 43 per cent split between the petrol V6 and V8.
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.
However, the 3.0-litre ‘EcoDiesel’ turbo-diesel V6 used in the previous Grand Cherokee is no longer in production, while diesel-powered vehicles are niche players in Jeep’s home market – both factors indicating, therefore, that the return of a Grand Cherokee diesel is unlikely.
It’s also unclear if the Grand Cherokee itself will ever return to Australia.
When it was discontinued in 2025, the official word from Jeep Australia was that it was being “paused” for our market as it looked “to right-size the Jeep product portfolio to match local market dynamics and customer preferences”. However, right-hand drive production had ended.
The Grand Cherokee nevertheless was still Jeep’s best-seller in Australia last year, with sales 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.
The good times didn’t last long, with Grand Cherokee sales dropping to 11,964 in 2015, 6379 in 2016, and then gradually declining further almost every year thereafter.
The Grand Cherokee has followed the general trajectory of the Jeep brand in Australia, which has slumped from a high watermark of 30,408 sales in 2014 to just 1682 sales in 2025.
It has just one confirmed upcoming launch: a new-generation Compass, due here later this year.