The rumor of a new seven-seater SUV based on the little Jeep Compass has been swirling around for a while. Mainly the stories have been coming from the Indian market where Jeep is planning to expand further. However, it's been spotted testing in Europe and Brazil and now specifically cold-weather testing in northern Sweden. Reportedly the new vehicle is known as H6 internally, and while it's based in the Jeep Compass, it's a whole new, bigger vehicle - so we can write off the idea of it being called the Jeep Grand Compass. Jeep is cold-weather testing in the snow and ice of Sweden, suggesting that the new vehicle won't be purely for the Indian and South American markets.

We're expecting the new vehicle to have a new name, despite being on the Compass platform and sharing some of its recently upgraded design language and interior features such as the dashboard and steering wheel. Given Jeep's recent trouble with names, though, it remains to be seen what route the company will take here. As we can see from our spy pictures, Jeep has had to lengthen the Compass and increase the rear overhang to fit an extra row of seats. The cold weather testing suggests it won't be a cheap front-wheel-drive family transport, and all-wheel-drive is definitely on the menu.

Most of the rumors on power plants come from India, but a 2.0-liter turbo-diesel engine is unlikely to penetrate the US market. If it comes to the US, we would likely see the 2.4-liter Tigershark inline four-cylinder engine producing 180 hp and 175 lb-ft of torque from the Jeep Compass under the hood. It is possible, though, that the base model with front-wheel-drive will use the 177-horsepower 1.3-liter turbocharged engine from the Jeep Renegade as that engine has found its way into the Chinese market Compass. The 2.4-liter engine is said to be matched to Jeep's nine-speed automatic, and if the smaller engine is used, we would expect the same transmission to carry on through the range.