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Fiat Linea India – An eagle with sparrow wings

I had a chance to test drive the Fiat Linea Petrol – Emotion Pack – a couple of weeks ago. I must say that, I haven’t seen any better looking car in this segment or for that matter even in immediate upper segment until today in India. It looks so beautiful, feel heavy and nice but unfortunately has a weak heart.

fiat-linea-india
Image courtesy: Fiat India

Fiat make amends in India

Fiat had spoiled its image in India way back in 70s and 80s itself. Since then nobody seriously took Fiat as a serious brand probably except those Mumbai taxi drivers who still maintain their 1965 Fiats. However, eight years back, Fiat India surprised all of us with a stunning Fiat Palio which was a highly successful model. It went through many modifications and the next was the turn of the Linea.

If Palio was peppy enough and beautiful, its bigger brother has its European traits of inherited looks but it really drags on the road. The 1368cc (what a pity, it’s not even a 1.4L engine) petrol unit delivers a pathetic 115Nm torque at peak which means that you have to be somewhere in third or fourth gear to feel that the car can actually move. The engine offers a decent 90BHP power but nobody will feel it due to the poor torque.

The ground clearance is another area of concern. It hits almost every speed breaker on the road with just two people in the car itself and I can imagine the situation if the car is fully loaded. The car comes loaded with a lot of features such as Blue and Me blue tooth integration and the interiors are okay for the price.

However, a car is a car first because of its engine, anything else comes next. Due to the same reason, the Fiat Linea’s Indian edition is not a great car. On top of this Fiat’s notorious after sale service adds to the woes. Overall, the vehicle can be rated something like 3 out of 5.

You can find my road test report of Fiat Linea Petrol at Mouthshut.com. Let me know your thoughts on this beautiful laggard.

Happy Motoring!

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Ford Ikon – In a league of its own

I have been fascinated by cars and bikes from a very young age. I always watched, studied and admired them along with the various aspects of automobile engineering from my childhood. We did not have any car or bike in my house at that time and hence never got to try my hands on those coveted machines (if you can call them so) of that era. My first hands-on with a bike was at the age of 7 whereby I tried to ride my uncle’s Luna (do you remember that moped?) and got nice scolding and a couple of whacks for the same.

After I got my first job, the very first thing I did was to buy a bike. I, in fact, bought a Royal Enfield Machismo at that time – which was obviously a little too much for my thin frame :). After moving to the US for about three years, I got to experiment with a lot of good quality cars but most of them were auto-transmission models.

Coming back to India in 2001, gave me the opportunity to experiment with various nice cars. Since I always preferred driver’s cars over those who looked great or provided good mileage, I picked Maruti Zen as my first car in India. It was an awesome car to drive but I was yearning for more and hence in 2004-’05 I switched to a Ford Ikon 1.6 Petrol which, at that time, was probably the best driver’s car in India.

Ford Ikon 1.6 Review

Though, I have been writing car reviews here and there, I thought of organizing my auto reviews a little bit and hence started publishing them on my blogs. Unfortunately, some of them got closed due to other blogging priorities and hence I moved some of my reviews to Mouthshut.com.

My Ford Ikon review on Mouthshut is the first organized and complete review of that kind. You may please read the review and provide your feedback there itself. At some point, I plan to consolidate all my reviews on this blog.

Happy Motoring!