The Italian car maker Fiat has confirmed the launch of its widely acclaimed high performance brand, Abarth in India, which according to company plans, would make its way on Indian roads, the very next year. Abarth plays a significant role in Fiat's global sales and is as important to it as AMG is to Mercedes-Benz. The Italian auto giant plans to bring its performance tuning brand in the country in order to make the brand more popular among the car enthusiasts, apart from helping in increasing the sale numbers. The success of BMW MINI has paved way for other car makers to bring similar vehicles and Fiat's plan to launch Abarth may have been inspired by MINI's success.
The Abarth models will hit the Indian shores as a completely built up unit (CBU) and is, therefore, expected to be priced slightly higher. The widely popular Abarth 500 should be the first to be launched in the country and is likely to carry a price tag between Rs. 18 lakhs and Rs. 20 lakhs. The Mini Cooper S, which would be one of Abarth 500's competitors, is priced higher than this; therefore, this new model from Fiat should be successful in luring buyers.
Abarth is an Italian racing car maker which was founded in the year 1949 by Australian-Italian Carlo Abarth in Turin. The company started its association with Fiat in 1952, when it built Abarth 1500 Biposto, based on Fiat Mechanicals. The company continued to make racing cars; however, along with it, Abarth also manufactured exhaust pipes. Later, Abarth started manufacturing various tuning kits for road vehicles, mainly Fiat. In 1971, Abarth became a part of Fiat, when the latter bought the former. Now, Abarth is an integral part of Fiat and both the companies continue to bring performance cars, the latest being Grande Punto Abarth and the Grande Punto Abarth S2000.
