Fiat spruces up its India line-up with more power

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles India (FCA) today announced that its range of cars sold under the Fiat brand, including the Linea, Punto Evo and Avventura will now be offered with more powerful engines and a touch screen infotainment system with navigation, across all trims.

Kevin Flynn, president and managing director, FCA India, said: “Fiat cars are known for their performance and by adding more horsepower to our model range we are only living up to our brand promise ‘Crafted for Car Lovers’.”

The carmaker also rolled out the Fiat Linea 125 S, a new version of Fiat’s executive sedan with 123.3hp on tap against the 114hp and 93hp available earlier. The car now also features a 5-inch multi-functional touch-screen infotainment system with navigation in addition to other features such as the soft-touch IP with ambient lighting, rear sun curtain, disc brakes on all four wheels and dual stage driver airbags.

The Punto Evo hatchback and the Avventura crossover will now be offered with the 91.7hp, 1.3-litre Multijet engine and the 5-inch multi-functional touch screen infotainment system with navigation across all variants making them more desirable in their respective categories. Branded as ‘PowerTech’ both Punto EVO and Avventura will be available in three progressive trims – Active, Dynamic and Emotion.

Pricing for the Fiat Linea 125 S starts at Rs 782,000 and the PowerTech series starts at Rs 681,000 for the Fiat Punto Evo and Rs 787,000 for the Fiat Avventura (all prices ex-showroom, New Delhi).

FCA has struggled to capture the Indian buyers’ fancy with sales declining consistently in the last few years. A lack of new product launches and aftersales and service concerns have marred the appeal for the otherwise well engineered vehicles. Even in the first two months of this fiscal, the carmaker’s sales have continued on the downward trend with a decline of over 30%.

Now with a more feature-laden line-up on offer, it would be interesting to see if the company could get those elusive sales numbers.