Fiat Avventura Facelift coming in 2016, all-new Grande Punto in 2017

Italian car maker Fiat’s global product roadmap for the next four years, that it until 2018, has been revealed. For the Asia Pacific (APAC) region, which includes India, Fiat will not launch the 500X crossover, which will be revealed at the upcoming Paris Motor Show this year, and will go on sale internationally from 2015. A compact SUV is in the works for the APAC market but will hit production only in 2018.

The major launches in the interim for the APAC market, with India in the picture, include the facelifted version of the Avventura crossover styled hatchback and the all-new Grande Punto. The Avventura, which will be launched in India, later this year, will get a facelift by the end of 2016. The facelift, coming two years after the car’s initial launch, is likely to be a mid-life makeover.

In the next couple of months, Fiat India will launch the facelifted Grande Punto hatchback that will get revamped exteriors and interiors. An all-new version of the Grande Punto will arrive by the end of 2017. Apart from its launch time frame, new nothing much is known about the all-new Grande Punto except that the new car will use the Fiat 500’s US Small platform. The new Punto will continue to be a B+ segment hatchback though.

Although Fiat has lined up a D-Segment sedan for the APAC market in 2016, an Indian launch for such a car remains doubtful given the contraction of the D-Segment sedan market here. To wrap things up, the major new launches from Fiat in 2016 and 2017 will be the Avventura facelift and the all-new Grande Punto respectively. In the interim, the Italian car maker will introduce the Abarth range of high performance cars in India with the first product slated to be the Abarth 500.

American SUV brand Jeep is also likely to be brought into India in the times to come. Fiat India is said to be waiting for an opportune moment to bring the Jeep brand into India as the current weak economic climate isn’t very conducive to car sales. While some Jeep SUVs will be highly priced CBUs, the more interesting models for India will include the Renegade and the C-Segment SUV that are likely to hit Indian roads in 2015 and 2016 respectively.

Via IndianAutosBlog