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By
EWAN KENNEDY
1 October 2007
Fiat has announced a sportier model in its Punto range. Not a
full-on sports beast, but one with enough extra grunt to bring a smile
to the faces of keen drivers. And, just as importantly in these times
when people are finally becoming aware of global warming, the new engine
promises to be economical and clean.
The new Punto engine has a static capacity of a mere 1.4 litres,
but the efficient little turbo that sits beside it pumps it up to
a healthy 90 kW and takes the car from rest to 100 km/h in only
8.9 seconds. Thus you get the performance of a six-cylinder family
car, but only use 6.6 litres of petrol per hundred kilometres when
tested to the official European driving cycle. There are diesel
engines that use more fuel than that. Carbon dioxide emissions are
155 grams per kilometre.
Italians do love giving their cars and engines over-the-top
names, so this new Punto turbo-petrol comes with the fascinating
tag of ‘Fiat Punto Sport 1.4 16v T-Jet’ – it’s just as
well there's plenty of space on the neat tail of this car…
There's a big emphasis on torque in this engine. A typical
1.4-litre powerplant without a turbo would struggle to produce
much more than 125 Newton metres, yet this turbo hotshot can go
all the way up to 206 Nm. Even more impressively, it will be able
to generate 200 Nm from a mere 1700 rpm. So most drivers will
spend virtually all their time with the engine at its maximum
efficiency.
We haven’t yet driven this new engine, no-one outside of Fiat
has, but its specs suggest it should be an enjoyable powerplant
with the willingness that’s such a feature of any small engine.
And the torque figures are simply amazing and promise heaps of
Aussie-type grunt virtually all the time.
Suspension, steering and braking have all been uprated to not
only cope with the extra power, but also to push the Fiat Punto
Sport 1.4 16v T-Jet in a sporting direction.
We said this new Fiat turbo-petrol isn’t a full-on sports
model, but Fiat enthusiasts are well aware that such a model is
very much in the pipeline. One of the most famous of all Italian
tuning houses, Abarth, is working on a hot variant of the Punto.
It’s expected to make its European debut early to mid 2008 and
to be on sale in Australia shortly afterwards.
© Copyright
Marque Publishing Company
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