Fiat India Automobiles Ltd on Friday commenced production of the Linea at the Ranjangaon plant near Pune, the C-segment sedan will go on sale in the showrooms next month with monthly sales targets being pitched at around 2,500 units.

Fiat India Automobiles Ltd, on Friday, commenced production of its Linea sedan at the Ranjangaon plant near Pune. “We will have around 1,200 units of Linea ready by next year,” Rajeev Kapoor, chief executive, Fiat India said, adding that the company expects to sell around 2,500 units every month.

“Rollout of the Linea is the first in a series of steps being taken by the company to revive its brand in India,” said Kapoor. He added that after Linea, the company will launch Grande Punto in the second quarter of 2009. Linea, Grande Punto and Tata X1 sedan will be put together on the same assembly line. “Around 450 cars will be rolled out on a daily basis, in a phased manner. This will include 10-15 Lineas initially,” said a company official.

Fiat’s Linea will be available in three variants: Active being the basic model, and Dynamic and Emotion being higher-end variants. A fourth variant, Emotion Plus, targeted at the premium segment, will be launched later. The company’s localisation, which is currently around 55%, will reach 90% by December 2009. Linea will be launched with 1.3 litre multi-jet diesel and 1.4 litre petrol engines. The company is planning to fit Emotion Plus with a higher end engine. In Europe, Linea is available with 1.6 litre petrol and 1.9 litre diesel engines

At present, Fiat’s Ranjangaon plant has an installed capacity of 135,000 cars annually, which can go up to 2 lakh. Currently, there are 60 selling points and the company plans to take up to 100 plus dealers by end of December. “The auto industry is going through its worst crisis and the consumer has become more selective. But we see an opportunity in the slowdown to bring new products into the market. If we have the right product at the right price, we will sell. The challenge is consumer finance,” said Kapoor. Though the government is taking some steps to ease the situation, “we will have to wait and see”, he added. He also pointed out that Fiat was not impacted by the slowdown and there are no plans to go slow on production at the Ranjangaon plant.

At present, the Ranjangaon plant assembles the Tata Indica in small numbers and also makes around 900 units of fiat Palio hatchback a month. Fiat has begun exports of Palio to South Africa. As indicated earlier, Linea will be priced under Rs 10 lakh.

report courtesy of The Financial Express