Fiat India to Help Parent Company Develop Smallest Jeep

Introduction

Fiat India’s research and development (R&D) team would contribute significantly in the Italian car maker’s programme to design and develop its alliance partner Chrysler’s smallest Jeep, to be launched globally in mid-2014. The company has finalised a plan to roll out nine new models by 2016, some of which would be shipped from India to right-hand-drive markets abroad.

The Fiat Group is investing Euro 1 billion in developing two new products at it facility in Melfi, Italy. Apart from the small Jeep (likely to be named ‘Jeepster’ or ‘Scamp’), the company is working on another crossover vehicle, based on the 500X platform. The second product would have the Fiat badge.

Enrico Atanasio, managing director, Fiat Group Automobiles India Private Limited, said, “Massive market research would be done from the next quarter for the product (Jeepster) in India. We want to understand the requirements of the market here. The Indian R&D (research and development) team would contribute significantly in the development of the product in Melfi. We are looking at leveraging India as an export hub for right-hand drive models. We have excess capacity in India and are looking at exporting vehicles from here to markets in the UK, Japan, Australia, South Africa.” Fiat operates a production unit at Ranjangaon in Maharashtra with partner Tata Motors. Currently, the two companies together utilise about half the facility’s annual production capacity of 1,80,000 units.

Source

Business Standard, January 17, 2013