Fiat India, the Indian subsidiary of the Italian automobile manufacturer Fiat is planning to launch nine new car models in the Indian car market by the year 2016. Among the new launches would be four car models from the Jeep SUV brand, Abarth and upgraded Linea and Punto car models.
According to Mr. Ravi Bhatia Vice-President (Sales and Dealer Development) Fiat Group Automobiles India, the company is in the process of studying the Indian market to launch the Fiat Professional brand of utility/passenger vans and small pick-up trucks.
The Italian company’s Indian R&D team will be contributing significantly in the designing and development of Chrysler’s smallest Jeep, the Jeepster which will be launched globally in 2014. Also, a B-segment SUV will be launched by the carmaker in 2015 after research and development at its Chennai plant. The new SUV will be manufactured at the automaker’s Ranjangaon (Pune) plant.
Fiat India is also planning to develop the Ranjangaon (Pune) facility as a global hub for manufacturing and exporting car models for the UK, Japan and the Australia market.
In order to support its expansion plans, the Italian carmaker is in the process of increasing the number of dealerships by appointing 120 new dealers across India by Mar 2014.