Fiat India Private Limited (FIAL) is conducting a multijet drive across India, covering more than 10,000km. All four Fiat cars sold in India (the Palio, Linea, Grande Punto and the 500) are a part of this drive with an additional Grande Punto as a support car. The drive was flagged off last week from the Ranjangaon plant, and the convoy headed towards Bengaluru via Chiplun and Goa. CarWale joined the drive at Bengaluru.
We headed from Bengaluru to Coimbatore passing Hosur on the way, and from Coimbatore to Munnar to Cochin. The drive was through some well maintained Karnataka highways to some good and bad Tamil Nadu state highways as well as some great Kerala roads, not to forget the beautiful scenery which can be seen in the pictures.
The drive has been conducted to focus on the reliability of the 1.3-litre multijet engines which powers all models from the current Fiat range in India. The so-called underpowered engines (critics) will get the answer once they drive these Italian blocks on the highways. All the multijets from the Fiat 500 to the Fiat Linea were clocking and maintaining 3-digit figures on the dash and we could cover good distances whenever required.
On our first day of the drive, we faced two back-to-back punctures due to a couple of large stones on the road. Our car was lucky enough to escape punctures or any damage to the tyres, although it was sandwiched between the two cars which got punctured.
The second day’s drive was through tea gardens to Munnar. The temperature on the hilltop was close to 15deg Celsius and the visibility was fairly low due to fog. We had a late lunch in Munnar and we headed to Cochin which was our stop for the next day. The Fiat powerplants responded every time we flexed our right feet and lived up to our expectations. Accompanied with the great handling of the Fiats, driving along single-lane roads and hills was thrilling yet easy.
CarWale left the Multijet drive on Sunday night in Cochin with a heavy heart – the cars that handled and rode well at high speeds, the reliable engines and the lovely roads and scenery gave us the Monday morning blues while writing this piece at our desk. How about a petrol drive next, Fiat? We’d love to sample the Palio 1.6 on the same roads!
