We drive the India-specific FIAT Punto EVO
Story: Piyush Sonsale
Photography: Rommel Albuquerque
The FIAT Punto is one of the nicest looking premium hatchbacks in the country. It’s Italian after all. Although the car had remained unchanged since its début in the year 2009, it is about to change with the Punto EVO, which we drove last month. The Punto EVO is the standard name used by FIAT for the facelift version of the car internationally. However, the Indian edition of the car looks different from the international version since FIAT India have developed it in-house after considering the tastes of and feedback from domestic buyers.
The ‘EVO’ suffix stands for evolution since the car is based on the previous Punto. So the platform and proportions are the same while the styling has been revised considerably. To start with, the ‘reindeer’ headlamps of the Punto EVO extend on the sides of the bonnet to resemble antlers. The bonnet looks muscular with the two longitudinal lines at the centre and the radiator intake has a new black coloured honeycomb grille. Chrome has been used generously on the radiator intake border, front and rear fog-lamp surrounds and door-handles. Turn indicators are integrated into the mirrors and the car has 16-inch diamond cut alloy wheels. At the back, the tail-lamp cluster has been re-designed, the badge on the tail-gate has a different font and the ‘Punto’ logo is all new. Of course, there are slight variations in the features and equipment in the car according to the variant. For instance, the ground clearance of the base petrol variant has been increased from 185 millimetres to 195 mm and there are three wheel sizes across the range.
