Alfa Romeo set for debut next year

Fiat Group Automobiles, which also owns other renowned race car brands like Ferrari, Maserati and Lancia, is eager to change the company's local image. Fiat India Automobiles Private witnessed a drastic fall in sales before it tied up with Tata Motors, India's largest automobile company, a year back.

Fiat is looking to re-establish the brand in India before it finalises plans to launch volume generating models like Grande Punto and Linea. Currently, the company only sells the Palio model.

Rajeev Kapoor, CEO, Fiat India, said, "We want to change the image of the Fiat brand in India. We would want the image to be associated as a stylish brand. We are launching brands, which will be brand icons. We are finalising plans for Alfa Romeo launch in 2009."

As a measure towards building the brand, the company launched the Fiat 500 model on Friday, which is priced close to Rs 15 lakh (Ex-showroom). It is confident of selling about 100 units of the fully imported model in the next one year.

The company has also undertaken a mass exercise of giving all its showrooms across the country an international Fiat touch, which means that Indian showrooms will be on par with any of the company's overseas showrooms in terms of consumer ambience and buying experience.

Apart from a manufacturing joint venture, Fiat also has a distribution agreement with Tata Motors, which enables the company to sell cars through Tata Motors showrooms. The Fiat 500 will be sold exclusively through six dealers in Mohali, Delhi, Bangalore, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Pune.

The company has also shown interest in bringing the super car brands Ferrari and Maserati to India, though no dates have been finalised yet. Furthermore, to promote the brand, Fiat also launched the "Magic India Discovery Drive" along with Ferrari in February this year.

The company has set itself an ambitious sales target of 60,000-65,000 units by the end of next year.

In the financial year ended March 31, 2008, the company sold just 3,379 cars, 51 per cent more than the previous year's sales.