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Following its Indian national debut in New Delhi, the
locally-built Fiat Grande Punto has been
launched in Mumbai, the country's business
capital. The glamorous location was the Taj
Land's End, Bandra, Mumbai. This was the same
venue which had hosted the Linea launch in
January.
The press briefing concluded early and soon all
the media folks were enjoying several rounds of
drinks. Since the national launch of the Grande
Punto had already taken place in New Delhi, we
expected the Mumbai event to be of a slightly
lower profile, and it was certainly much simpler than the
Linea launch, although the evening was optimised
by the beautiful surroundings. After the press
meeting, the Fiat management decamped to the
outer perimeter of the venue where three new
Grande Puntos were arrayed in a show area under
the spotlights. Fiat CEO, Mr. Rajeev
Kapoor, had some photo ops with the media and
also dished out one interview after another to
the press present there.
Then there was an announcement for everyone to
assemble in the banqueting hall for the formal
program to begin. Shweta Salve was the host for
the evening. There was also a percussionist who
played some nice routines on the djembe, congos
and Brazilian drums. After about 5 minutes of
this percussion performance the stage was set
for some martial arts dance routines. This
performance had less martial arts and more
acrobatics. The three male performers turning in
some eye-catching stunts. The martial arts
performance was in continuation of the theme set
for the Grande Punto itself - "be bold".
Once this performance was over, the official
advert for the new "B-Plus" segment hatchback was
launched and Mr. Kapoor made the formal
announcement of the Grande Punto launch and
mentioned a couple of times that the Fiat-Tata
chain now has a good network of spares
availability and supply backed by excellent
technical know-how on the FIAT products in the
Indian markets. Fiat India are realistically
targeting sales of 2,500 units a month. This presentation ended with the
usual media scramble to have the CEO pose with
the Grande Punto which by now had arrived on the
stage. Shweta Salve was also asked to pose with
the car. Shweta later announced that dinner was
ready and most of the guests moved onto the
dining hall while man went outside to take a
closer look at the three Grande Punto parked
there and get a better feel of this key car.
The technical and feature details of the Grande
Punto have been widely discussed since the New
Delhi launch (it will come at launch with 1.2
and 1.4 litre FIRE engines as well as the 1.3
Multijet) but it has to be said immediately
that there is simply no other premium hatch on
the market in India which comes close when it
comes to it looks-wise. The Grande Punto is
literally a head-turner and a style statement
for the budget range that it is available for.
The pricing is very competitive and credit must
be given to Fiat India for this, meaning that
the Grande Punto has the potential to drive a
miraculous recovery for Fiat in India just as it
did so well in Europe.
There are few faults to speak of inside but tall
passengers may have some issues with their knees
touching the glove compartment. This however can
be managed with pushing the seat back at the
expense of leg room for the rear passengers.
Other positives include the equipment list
(which includes the Blue&Me infotelematics
package) the paint finish which is
top-notch, with the combination of red and
hip-hop black really standing out, the wipers
are smartly designed to hug the wind-screen and
to have the best possible swiping action. This
is evident when you straighten out the wipers
and you can see a "C" shaped bend to the wiper
which makes this possible. The dark shade of the
Grande Punto's dashboard is also a welcome
change from the brown and beige combination that
features on the Palio Stile while the gear stick
is short and somewhat similar to the Hyundai i10. All in
all, I feel someone looking to buy an i10 or a
Swift would really have to have some strong
reasons to say no to the GP.
by Siddarth Shetty
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