We've all heard about the famous 1.3 multi jet diesel from the Fiat stable. It's a brilliant little unit that has been put to extensive use by Fiat in their entire range. Celebrating this little engine?s fame is the 'Fiat Diesel Drives India' tour across the country, wherein journalists will drive a Linea, Grande Punto, Fiat 500 and a Palio, all powered by the same 1.3 unit over 10,000 odd kilometers across the country.
Team Zigwheels, namely Dilip Desai, Abhishek Nigam, Priyadarshan Bawikar and Vikram Gour, incidentally were the first set of journalists to take on the momentous drive. The first leg was flagged off from Fiat's Ranjangaon facility and would culminate in Bangalore. The convoy drove through Chiplun and Goa, wherein we got to face some brilliant roads, wonderful twisties and of course any journey across India would not be complete without a drive over some rather horrendous potholed roads!
The fleet of cars held up well and notions of being sluggish or underpowered were soon dispelled for the 1.3 litre diesel manages rather well under the hood of this entire range. From the small 500 to the large Linea sedan, the 1.3 unit was able to yank the cars up steep climbs and allow for three digit cruising speeds with utter ease. The only car that did face a little difficulty on the broken roads was the 500, but then again it isn't designed for such roads and the fact that we only got a few bubbles on the tyres goes to show that all the car needed was some higher profile rubber to make the trip with ease.
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The total distance Team Zigwheels covered roughly amounted to 1400 kilometers. At numerous tank-ups we found that the cars had roughly consumed the same amount of fuel. From the 500 to the Linea there was roughly a 1 litre difference! The cars were all averaging between 16-18 kilometers to the litre depending on the stretches of road we tackled. Of course on stretches such as Hubli to Chitradurga, where the highway was in an utter state of shabbiness the average dropped, but we pulled into Bangalore having averaged a decent 16 kilometers to the litre on the entire trip. No doubt that goes to show the frugal nature of the engines, despite being pushed hard at times for us to make up time as we had many unscheduled stops-mainly to soak in the beautiful countryside in all its vibrancy.
The 'Fiat Diesel Drives India' experience was a real eye opener on the brilliance of the 1.3 multi jet unit. It's a versatile engine that has great low end torque and despite behaving slightly differently in each model that it powers, it still maintains its inherent quality of being a frugal unit that is a joy to drive. Such is its abilities that apart from Fiat, Tata and Maruti Suzuki also employ this engine in their diesel models! So, it might have been a little known fact, but when you add up the numbers the Fiat diesel does drive India!
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