The worldwide economic slowdown has seen Fiat India put back the launch schedule of two new locally-assembled new models: the Linea will now arrive in the showrooms next month while the Grande Punto will appear in 2009.

The slowdown in the car market is affecting the launch plans of car companies. Italian automotive major Fiat India Automobile will launch its new mid-size sedan Linea in December instead of last month due to the poor sentiment prevailing in the market. Its second launch Grande Punto has also been pushed back and will now hit the market sometime next year instead of December.

The company is reviewing its launch plans after taking stock of the poor demand sentiment in the car market. FIA CEO Rajeev Kapoor told Economic Times: “We are optimistic that the market will improve in the last quarter of this year. We have pushed back new launches as the series of government initiatives are likely to bear fruit and improve sentiment by then. So, we will launch our new cars at an appropriate time.”

Linea will be available with the 1.3 Multijet diesel engine and 1.4 FIRE petrol engine. It will roll out from Fiat’s newly established Ranjangaon plant in Maharashtra and will be in the price band of Rs 6-8 lakh. The Grande Punto, another locally assembled model from the Fiat stable, was supposed to be launched in December and will now come in the first quarter of 2009. Next in line is its luxury Bravo, whose launch timing is yet to be finalised.

“We are operating jointly with Tata Motors. There has been a spate of launches, including Tata’s new cars. As our vehicles are jointly marketed with Tata Motors we want to space our launches and do not want to confuse customers with frequent roll-outs. Both these cars are volume products. We aim to clock sales of 2,000 Lineas every month, so a right market strategy is being pursued,” Mr Kapoor added. Fiat’s sales grew 34% to 2,782 cars during April-October. Overall car sales grew 3.5% to 6.99 lakh in the same period this year from 6.75 lakh last year.

Maruti Suzuki and Hyundai have also pushed back their launches beyond the festive season. Maruti’s A-Star hatchback was slated to debut in October and will now be introduced later this month while Hyundai’s premium hatchback i20 is expected to hit the domestic market in January next year.

Report courtesy of the Economic Times