REVEALED: Fiat's grand plans for India

It's been six months since Fiat announced its plan to introduce two Jeep models in the Indian automobile market by 2013. Now, it seems the company has much bigger plans for the country.

Apart from launching Jeep - owned by its US arm, Chrysler - it also intends to introduce Fiat Abarth, a brand of comprising of rally-cars.

Enrico Atanasio, who heads commercial operations at Fiat India Automobiles Ltd, said, "We are analysing the brand portfolio to find out which models can be suitable for the Indian market. There are all possibilities. Be it Alfa Romeo, Fiat commercial, or Chrysler as well as light commercial vehicles."

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Though the company has not confirmed it, sources in the industry believe that Fiat Abarth, in India, will take its inspiration from the Fiat Grande Punto 1.4 Emotion.

The current Grande Punto is powered by a 1.4-litre and 1.2-litre 4-cylinder petrol engine, and also comes along with the 1.3-litre diesel options.

Going by the rumours in the industry, Fiat plans to use the 1.4-litre turbo-charged petrol engine that also powers the Fiat Linea T-Jet. It will, however, be an up-rated version of the engine that is expected to generate up to 152 bhp of peak power.

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The spate of new launches is planned as Fiat is restructuring its India operations and trying to revive the brand. With new launches, the company is aiming at a 10-fold increase in its market share from the current 0.39 per cent.

Ravi Bhatia, vice-president (commercial), Fiat India Automobiles, said, "We are re-structuring the entire Indian company right from products to the brand as well as the distribution network to reach the sales position held globally by the Fiat Group."

He further added, "We aim to have 80 exclusive dealers by March 2013 across 67 major cities to turnaround our India operations."

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As part of the restructuring, Fiat is also plans to update the existing Grande Punto and Linea models in 2013 to deal with the competition. Later, in 2014, the company will launch the new Grande Punto and Linea models.

This is good news for Punto and Linea fans, as newer models means the older version would become more affordable.

The new Grande Punto is expected to feature 1.2-litre petrol and 1.3-litre Multijet diesel engines. On the other hand, the new Fiat Linea will hopefully be offered in 1.4-litre turbo-charged petrol and 1.6-litre Multijet diesel engine options.

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To attain the targeted market share, the company plans to introduce sports utility vehicles soon. "We plan to unleash some excitement over the next few years by launching different products and brands, especially in the fast-growing SUV segment, to achieve 4.5 per cent market share in India," said Enrico Atanasio.

Fiat is all set to make a starry SUV debut with the Jeep Wrangler and Grand Cherokee models owing to their international popularity.

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Both these models will be updated in 2016. While the Jeep Wrangler is slated to receive an update at the start of 2016, Grand Cherokee will follow soon with an updated by mid-2016.

Despite slowdown in passenger cars, SUV has become the fastest growing car segment in the country. When Renault opened bookings for Duster, there were 10,000 applications for the SUV within a fortnight. Many auto companies saw similar response to SUVs. Following this, every carmaker is gearing up for new launches in the segment.

Ford is expected to launch Ecosport by early 2013 and Toyota's five-seater Rush is also on its way to India.

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Fiat is aiming at launching cars across the segments. The company said that it will also introduce a B-segment compact SUV that will most probably sport a 1.4-litre petrol and 1.3-litre diesel engine in 2015.

Apart from the B-segment compact UV, Fiat also plans to introduce an SUV in the C-segment.

To increase its reach, the company targets to increase dealer network to 112 new independent dealers across 126 cities with 39 authorised service centres.

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