Fiat Grande Punto Facelift gets Avventura inspired styling

The Fiat Grande Punto Facelift is weeks away from a launch in India what with Fiat India painting the town red with aggressive discounts for the outgoing model.  The B+ hatchback’s facelift promises to be unique to the Indian car market. As was evident by the on-road testing of the car, the Punto Facelift adopts styling bits from the Avventura crossover styled hatchback. A key bit is the way the front end of the Punto Facelift has been designed.

Sharply raked headlamps and a grille design borrowed from the Avventura makes the Punto Facelift look quite different from the global facelift of the car, which made its debut way back in 2012. In that sense, Fiat India is serving up something new not just for the Indian car market, but for other emerging markets as well. The Fiat Punto Facelift will get revamped interiors, an area that was lamented to be dull by owners of the outgoing Punto.

All in all, the Punto Facelift will be a more rounded car than before when it comes to the quality of its interiors. Expect a feature or two to be added for good measure. The engines and gearboxes are likely to be carried over from the outgoing version of the car. The 1.2 liter (67 Bhp-96 Nm) and 1.4 liter (89 Bhp-115 Nm) FIRE petrol engines and the 1.3 liter Multijet diesel motor in two states of tune (75 Bhp-197 Nm and 91 Bhp-209 Nm)  will be offered on the 2014 Punto Facelift.

The five speed gearbox will be common across all engine options. The outgoing Fiat Grande Punto Diesel has been much derided for its gearing that gave it lousy acceleration performance. If Fiat India manages to fix the gearing on the facelifted model, the Punto will be able to use its turbo diesel engine much better and offer significantly better performance.

Via IndianAutosBlog