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This is an archive article published on October 28, 2009

Fiat plans low-cost car for Indian market

Italian auto-major Fiat is developing a low-cost car for India. The car will be placed at the bottom of the B-segment in the price range of Rs 4 lakh.

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Italian auto-major Fiat is developing a low-cost car for India. The car will be placed at the bottom of the B-segment in the price range of Rs 4 lakh. The segment includes cars like Santro,Indica,Alto and Chevrolet Spark The new car will be manufactured at the company’s Ranjangaon plant near Pune.

Speaking on the sidelines of the Fiat Diesel Drives India that was flagged off at Ranjangaon on Tuesday and aims to take Fiat’s four multi-jet diesel offerings- the Linea,Grande Punto,Palio and Fiat 500- to 16 states across the country over a period of a month and a half,Silverio Bonfiglioli,chief operating officer International Operations,Fiat Group Automobiles,said that the new low-cost car would be a mass product particularly suited for the Indian market. “We are currently developing cars for various markets out which the low-budget car will be for India. Also the new variants of Grande Punto and Linea will soon be launched in the country,” said Bonfiglioli.

Rajeev Kapoor,president and CEO,Fiat India Automobiles Limited said that next year the company hopes to produce 1.65 lakh engines including 1.3 litre multijet engine and 1.2 and 1.4 litre ‘fire’ gasoline engine. “Our current installed capacity at the engine plant is 3,20,000 units per year. Next year we will scale this up,” said Kapoor. This year the company is manufacturing 1,00,000 engines of which 25,000 are being exported.

He said that after the launch of Punto about 7,000 cars have been sold in the country. “The auto market in the country is picking up and we estimate the sales to improve in the coming months,” he added.

“Fiat’s diesel inventions and technology constitute a landmark position in global automobile history. Our 1.3 multijet engines have achieved unparalleled success abroad. The Fiat Diesel Drives India is our way of showing that our engines have passed the great Indian test and are at the highest level of competency and reliability as technology today can provide,” said Kapoor.

The Tata-Fiat network constitutes 99 dealerships and 6 point of sales spanning across 77 cities in the country. All these dealerships have a separate identity for Fiat and offer an international ownership experience for customers.

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