Fiat India & Tata Motors are planning to collaborate in setting up a joint SUV assembly line at Fiat’s Ranjangaon unit, reports ET Now. It is being said that both the automajors would jointly invest around Rs 3,000 crore for the aforementioned assembly line. It would have a capacity of rolling out 1 Lakh vehicles per year. Tata Motors would manufacture its upcoming Q501 and Q502 SUVs at this line, while Fiat would start the local assembly of its Jeep models from this line.

Just so you know, Fiat & Tata already have a 50:50 manufacturing joint venture in Ranjangaon unit. The Ranjangaon production facility wheels out the Fiat Linea currently. This move from the Italian automajor Fiat & home-grown automaker Tata Motors is being touted as one of the major partnership in the auto sector. Moreover, what makes it ever bigger is the fact that both the companies had a marketing JV split few years back. Fiat Group Automobiles SPA’s distribution arrangement with Tata Motors came to a closure in March 2013 and it decided to sell its vehicles independently through its own dealership outlets and service centres. However, experts termed it as one of the biggest tactical mistakes by Fiat in India.

Jeep Cherokee

Currently, Fiat India is not even achieving satisfactory sales figures in India and its line-up comprises of just three cars – Punto EVO, Linea and Avventura. However, the company is working aggressively to get over this by introducing its performance brand Abarth in the country this year. It would also launch its SUV brand Jeep in India next year. On the other hand, Tata Motors is also struggling to cover the ground that it has lost to Mahindra over the past few years in the SUV segment. Hence, the company, with assistance from its premium brand Jaguar Land Rover, is planning to roll out as many as six new SUVs in the next 3 years. Out of the six planned SUVs, the first one to come out would be the Tata Hexa, which made its debut at the Geneva Motor Show in pre-production avatar. Tata Q501 and Q502 SUVs would be the next to follow Hexa in 2017 in India.

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