Fiat Veicoli Commerciali are the new sponsors of the Italian Men's and Women's National Ice Hockey teams, and will support them in the run up to the XX Olympic Games in Turin next year. Fiat Auto is already closely involved in sponsoring several other Olympic sports, such as snowboarding and the bobsleigh teams (Fiat), figure skating (Lancia) and downhill skiing (Alfa Romeo).

"Ice hockey is a spectacular sport which requires power, speed and stamina, and that is the same characteristics of Fiat's commercial vehicles" said Fiat Veicoli Commerciali's marketing manager Roberto Bandoli on the announcement of the sponsorship scheme. The shirts of the Italian Ice Hockey players will bear the slogan 'New Fiat Doblo Cargo', the name of the new Fiat van which was launched just last month. In fact with orders of 6,500 units already, the new Doblo is 20 pct up on the same period last year.

On 13th October, the Fiat Doblò Cargo was named “International Van of the Year 2006” by an international jury of journalists from 19 European countries who specialise in light commercial vehicles. The two turbodiesel engines made a particularly strong impression with the international jury of journalists: the powerful 105 bhp 1.9 Multijet and the 75 bhp 1.3 16v Multijet.
 

The latter, which is a masterpiece of technology and engineering from Fiat Auto, impressed the jury with its extraordinary performance in spite of its small size. Other developments are in the pipeline for the coming year, such as the introduction of new Multijet engines with variable geometry turbos (they will be the first to equip a light commercial vehicle).

About 310,000 units of the Fiat Doblò Cargo have been built to date. It leads its class for access to the loading bay, productivity and payload, as well as for the high levels of safety, comfort and ergonomics, and low consumption and operating costs. And this is all available at a price that is extremely competitive in all parts of the world. Last but not least, the jury underlined the great professional expertise of the Fiat sales and service network, which is considered one of the best in Europe.