With 49,922 units sold during January Fiat Automóveis continued to maintain its leadership of the Brazilian new vehicle market with 24.3 pct of total sales and up a massive 38.8 pct year-on-year.

During January, Fiat Automóveis saw 49,922 registrations on the Brazilian market, which represented 24.3 percent of the total sales of cars and light commercial vehicles in the country. That figure in fact represents a result that puts Fiat more than 2,300 units ahead of the second placed brand and an impressive year-on-year growth of 38.8 percent in relation to that which it achieved in January 2007.

While the VW Gol was the best selling car on the Brazilian market during January, the Fiat Palio was a solid second with 16,722 unit sales. The Palio was comprehensively facelifted last spring and continues to be one of the strongest contenders in the market's toughest segment.

One of the Brazilian car buyers' entry-level cars of choice, the long-running Uno model, was sixth in the rankings with another 10,579 units added last month. Meanwhile the highly-acclaimed new Punto accounted for another 3,404 units in January as Fiat continue to satisfy a growing Brazilian order book.

The Palio's platform, which was launched in Brazil in 1996 as the first member of the Project 178 'Word Car' initiative, is celebrating continuing success during the last year. The Project 178 based family has grown beyond the hatchback to now include the Siena (sedan), Palio Weekend (estate) and Strada (pick-up). This platform achieved the largest volume of sales of any architecture in Brazil in 2007, with 390,091 vehicles based on its underpinnings being sold. This places Project 178 derivatives well ahead of its rival's architecture, which includes the VW Gol platform (Gol, Saveiro and Parati), GM Celta (Celta, Prisma), GM Corsa (Corsa, Corsa sedan) and Ford Fiesta (Fiesta, Fiesta sedan).

Fiat Automóveis' total sales of 49,922 units in Brazil during January was made up of, in the passenger car category the Palio (16,722), Mille (10,579), Siena (7,083), Punto (3,404), Idea (2,435), Palio Weekend (1,438), Stilo (529) and Doblò (406), while in the light commercial vehicle segment the Strada (5,273) again came out on top with other representatives being the Fiorino (1,351), Ducato (581) and Doblò Cargo (110).

by Claudio Perlini