Fiat Grande Punto - Fiat Thinks GR

Fiat India is thinking big and thinking grand. As in Grande Punto, JTD engines, a new acturingarrangement and an all new approach in India. Expect all to fall in sync next year.

Story: Adil Jal Darukhanawala with additional inputs from Angus Fitton

FIATS IN INDIA HAVE been bedevilled. While the 1100 which morphed into the Padmini with Premier Automobiles set the ball rolling for the Italian car maker, the same Indian partner and its erstwhile collaborator fell out in the closing years of the last century after having set a record of sorts with six fi gure bookings for the Uno. Just like the Uno had helped bail Fiat out of trouble in the 1990s, it was expected to do so likewise for Fiat and its PAL but sadly things didn't go as per this script. The advent of the Project 178 world car family promised much but it remained a case of right car, right time, wrong handling and build quality and this drove the nail even more firmly and deeply into Fiat's very own existence in India.

All this could change though because Fiat has given it a new throw of the dice. It knows that it has to succeed in India (and China and Brazil and Russia and...) if it has to make up for lost sales in Europe and elsewhere. And just like has happened at many a crucial juncture in the 100 plus year history of this pioneer Italian car, it needs a single success story to rekindle the flame of passion within many an Indian car users's heart.

Fiat knows this all too well and it is trying to learn from its mistakes of the last decade here in India. It will need a contemporary automobile for India and not one which is 'specifically built for developing countries' as was the case with the Palio and its siblings. Given other OEMs like Honda, Toyota, Skoda and Maruti-Suzuki who have brought in their latest genuine world offerings like the City, Corolla, Octavia and Swift (to name but four models) to Indian car users, it would have been suicidal were Fiat to repeat the mistake of the Project 178 World Car yet again in India. What Fiat needs is a contemporary international offering and that is where the smart thinking rests within the Italian firm's think tank.

Even in Europe, Fiat was on shaky ground in the last decade but doing great small cars is what defines this company best. Running on this time tested formula helped ensure its survival with the Uno and the Punto in the final two decades of the last century. And now it seems that it has done much the same with the Grande Punto to ensure it gets back to stability and stature, two attributes it lacked massively just a few years ago. Were it not for some deft play with GM and some deep rooted soul searching, Fiat as we know it might have folded up, both in Europe and in the rest of the world.

Source: Car India September 2006.