| |
Handling: Is it German?
There's a reason why if you go to Europe you will be able to get
yourself an Abarth version of the Grande Punto. Fiat India may have
plonked in two able engines in the Grande Punto for our driving
conditions, but the car is definitely capable of handling a whole
lot more power - and we're not talking just about a straight line
here. We saw this with the Linea and we see it in the Grande Punto
as well - there's a certain feel you get when you sit in the driver's
seat of a car that handles well - and the Punto has it. The chassis
is just so well set up and works so amazingly well that you'd think
you were driving something built in Bavaria. The brilliance of the
package comes out in the fact that despite the diesel and petrol
Grande Puntos having so very different characters as far as the
engines go, the handling bit of this road test still shares the
same space - the chassis is that accommodating. Yes, the diesel
does tend to understeer a bit more than the petrol owing to its
45kg weight disadvantage concentrated towards the front, but that's
where the differences stop.
The front end uses independent suspension with McPherson struts,
helical springs, double acting telescopic dampers and a stabiliser
bar while the rear makes do with a torsion beam apart from the helical
springs, double acting telescopic dampers and a stabiliser bar.
Both petrol and diesel Grande Puntos share the same suspension setup
as well as the same tyre sizes - 195/60 R15 Goodyear GT3 rubber
on the Emotion PK variants which we tested. Now all that technical
jargon and the way it is tuned for Indian conditions means that
the Grande Punto soaks up broken tarmac, potholes and even deep
craters with ease. Before you go thinking that the car is probably
too softly set up then to turn in quick and the like, you're in
for a surprise. The Grande Punto will go precisely where you point
it and stay in complete control throughout. One area where the diesel
might have a slight disadvantage over the petrol could be in the
long run - with the extra weight contributing to faster tyre wear
on the drive wheels than on the petrol engined cars - but that's
a long term issue and shouldn't be much of a problem with those
Goodyear GT3s anyway.
View: 1.3 Multijet Specs, 1.4 Fire Specs, 1.3 Multijet Ratings, 1.4 Fire Ratings
|
