‘Made for India’ Fiat small car in early 2012; Linea T-Jet and Punto Sports this year

Could the new Uno be that small car? It certainly looks great

Fiat India is riding on a wave of resurgence. Following its terrible showing with the Fiat Palio (which is a great car mind you), the company fell back, lost all its dealers and it looked like the end of an energetic Italian brand. Then came their tie-up with Tata Motors and two global products – Linea and the Grande Punto followed by a ‘Halo’ model Fiat 500 that boosted their fledging brand. Fiat recorded sales of 24,000 in FY 2009 with a target of 50,000 in FY 2010. The company is now completely rejuvenated with fantastic new cars. Not to be associated with just these two mainstream cars, Fiat has lined up multiple cars for India in the next few years.

It is currently developing a new small car with assistance from Tata Motors specifically for the Indian market. This new car will be launched in late 2012. Of late, ‘The Economic Times’ has reported that the Indian arm of the Italian automaker is planning to launch its small car by the end of 2011 or early 2012, citing a senior official of the company. While no further details are available to us, it is expected to be an India specific model built at their massive Ranjangoan plant near Pune where the Linea, Punto and the Palio are made. The car is speculated to be jointly designed by Indians and Italians with the possibility of Fiat’s twin cylinder 900cc multi-air engine and a 1.0L 3-pot diesel. To keep prices under 4 lakhs, it will sport localisation levels of 80%. However when the official spokesperson of the company was contacted, he said, “Yes, we are working on a small car that will be built on a new platform and would be sold below Rs. 4 lakh. However, the timeline has not been set.”

Hit the jump to read the full article. Alternatively click here to read about Uno’s leaked images and renderings.

Fiat also made it clear that it will launch its Linea 1.4T-Jet and Punto Sports in July-August 2010. The T-Jet will come with a turbocharged 1.4 producing 120ps @ 5000rpm and 206Nm right from 1750rpm. It will prove to be an exciting option from the current Linea range that sports 1.3L 90bhp diesel as well as a 1.4L 90bhp petrol. The Linea T-jet is expected with stiffer suspension to provide the best driving experience. The Punto Sports on the other hand will come with a 1.4L 90bhp petrol engine from the Linea. A Punto CNG will also be launched soon.

The official spokesperson of the company confirmed the story. He said, “Yes, we are gearing up to launch the 1.4 T-jet and Grande Punto Sports after June. The move has been necessitated because while unveiling these models at the Auto Expo, visitors gave a thumping response to the model. Furthermore, there are a lot of requests at our dealer’s end.” He added, “As we are expecting a double-digit growth, we are also keen to introduce Punto Sports sometime that period although work is still on the same and so any exact timeline is difficult. Also, we are working and expect to roll out Punto’s CNG variant by the end of this fiscal year.”

Meanwhile, Fiat India has affirmed that it has no plans to increase prices of its cars at the moment as BS- IV emission norms kick in from April 2010. Fiat India president and CEO Rajeev Kapoor was quoted as saying to reporters, “At the moment, we don’t have any plans to increase the prices of our cars due to BS-IV emission norms. We will follow a wait and watch policy and observe other car manufacturers, and then will take a proper call.”

Fiat will also ramp-up its dealer count from the current 103 Tata-Fiat dealerships to 124 dealers across India by mid-2010.