New Fiat Punto Evo review, test drive

Particularly great is the tastefully textured soft plastic section on the front of the dashboard. Design wise, the earlier Punto’s angular theme has made way for a much curvier unit borrowed again from the facelifted Linea. The all-black dash you see here is restricted to the more powerful ‘Sport’ trims (both petrol and diesel), while the rest follow a dual-tone black-beige theme. From behind the wheel, the hooded instruments look fantastic and are very easy to read on the go. But, for all these visible improvements, the Punto Evo’s cabin still has a few grouses. The driving position still follows the ‘steering-close-to-chest’ posture and is hard to get right. Before setting off to Lonavala, I found that adjusting the steering to its lowest and the seat almost all the way up gives me an acceptable stance behind the wheel (I’m 5’10"). Also, some plastics such as the ones around the doors are still of the hard variety and general levels of fit are still short of the segment benchmark.

Like earlier, the sportier Puntos get better bolstered and firmer front seats, though comfort is quite good across the board. Unfortunately, rear seat space is still not as generous as rivals but you now get a rear AC vent with an integrated bottle holder. Speaking of features, the Evo gets climate control, Microsoft powered ‘Blue and Me’ Bluetooth connectivity and steering-mounted audio controls.

Under the hood, there’s still two pairs of petrol and diesel motors to choose from. So, you have an option between a 67bhp 1.2 petrol, a 89bhp 1.4 petrol and a 1.3 Multijet diesel in two states of tune – 75bhp and 90bhp. I had a go in the 75bhp Punto first to see how the lower powered version fares during the climb up to Lonavala. Interestingly, Fiat has tweaked the final drive on the 75bhp diesel to aid driveability; makes the first gear a bit taller to reduce the number of brief first-to-second shifts. And I did notice the need for lesser gearshifts while crawling out of the city. However, as the road opens up outside Mumbai, the 75bhp Punto’s mechanical package still lacks punch (especially with four on board) and you have to work the gearbox to constantly keep the engine spinning between 2000 and 3800rpm, where it doesn’t feel completely out of breath. And, it’s more of the same on the 90bhp version as well. There’s not much power to play with below 2500rpm and the lag feels far more pronounced than similar powered motors like the new 1.5-litre Volkswagen Polo’s. And the engine doesn’t do much justice to the ‘Sport’ moniker.Much like the diesels, the petrols won’t get your pulse racing either, which is a bit unfortunate given just how brilliantly planted the Punto feels at speed and around the bends.