Fiat's Indian Journey

Uno was launched in 1996, amidst much fanfare and acquired around 3,00,000 bookings in just three months. However, in June 1996, just when the company had closed the bookings, the employee union at the Kurla plant forced a lockout. The lockout was the result of a go-slow agitation led by militant trade union leader, late Datta Samant, started in April 1996. The lockout was lifted in November 1996, after a majority of the workforce defied the Datta Samant-led union and opted to go back to work. As a result of the lockout, production suffered greatly and the company could not deliver the booked vehicles in time - only 617 cars were delivered by the end of 1996. The non-delivery of the vehicles upset many consumers and around three-fourths of the orders were cancelled...

The entry-level models of the Palio (EL) and the Santro cost Rs 0.349 million and Rs 0.334 million respectively. Fiat claimed that it offered a net Rs 26,000 worth of content more than the Santro. The market seemed to agree with Fiat as the car was received rather well. In just two days, over 1100 cars were sold. This prompted Fiat to increase the daily production at its Kurla plant in October 2001. Bianchi said, "While daily production at the Kurla plant has already been increased from 50 to 70 cars a day, we plan to increase it further to 100 cars a day by mid-October and 150 by November-December." The company was also planning to add a third shift and produce 220 cars a day. Some analysts remarked that the market's initial excitement over the Palio seemed to be a repetition of the Uno and Siena episodes...