Fiat Automóveis is this week celebrating the production of vehicle number 10,000,000 in Brazil. The model is a Palio 2010, the revised version of the long-running Palio hatchback which is a key model to be produced at the factory. Production of Fiat models at Betim has increased dramatically over the last 30 years, rising from 63,756 units of the Fiat 147 (above) which were built in 1977 all the way up to the record breaking 713,248 vehicles which were assembled in 2008.

Fiat Automóveis is this week celebrating the milestone of the production of vehicle number 10,000,000 at its Betim factory which comes just over three decades after the sprawling plant churned out its first car. The model to achieve this honour is a Palio 2010, the 'Model Year' revised version of the long-running Palio hatchback which is a key Fiat vehicle to be produced at the factory.

The assembly lines, which are located in the city of Betim, Belo Horizonte, in the state of Minas Gerais, rolled out their first vehicles more than three decades ago, in June of 1976. With a very large worker pool in the area, good road and rail links, and government assistance in obtaining land and planning permissions, Betim became the choice for Fiat to kick off production in Brazil. With a steadily growing market for vehicles and high import tariffs as well as giving access to the Mercosul trade region, Brazil was a logical choice. Ever since, the production of Fiat models has increased dramatically, rising from 63,756 units of the Fiat 147 model which were built in 1977 all the way up to the 713,248 vehicles which were assembled in 2008, a production record for the 33 years of Fiat manufacturing operations in the Latin American country.

Currently, fifteen different Fiat models are produced at the Betim factory spread over more than one hundred versions. Key Fiat Automóveis models to be built at Betim for both the local market and export include the full 'Project World Car' family: Palio (hatchback), Siena (sedan), Palio Weekend (estate) and Strada (pick up) as well as the new [Grande] Punto and long-running Fiorino van, while the latest model to leave the factory gates is the Linea sedan.

Betim, which is the Fiat Group's biggest car factory outside Italy and also accounts for more than a quarter of all Fiat models' built worldwide, is spread over an area of 2,250,000 m2, with 613,800 m2 of this being the assembly halls. Betim now has an average daily production rate of over 2,800 units which are destined for the Brazilian market and for export. The production volume of the Betim factory is even larger if you consider the production of vehicles in CKD format, which add a total of approximately 900,000 units during the decades of 1980’s and 1990’s.

by Claudio Perlini