As a world premiere, Fiat will be presenting the refreshed Grande Punto at next month's Frankfurt Motor Show before the supermini goes on sale across Europe in late October. Now named 'Punto Evo', the Italian automaker's proposal in the hot B-segment has been given a mild exterior restyling, a reworked interior and an updated engine range that includes a 1.4-liter Multiair gasoline and a second generation 1.3-liter Multijet diesel.
On the outside, Fiat's Centro Stile tweaked the Punto Evo with restyled headlamps and a new front bumper that now incorporates three grilles and a dark grey center section while at the back, there's a redesigned bumper and updated tail lights. Overall, we'd say that the styling changes make the Punto Evo look more fussy than it needs...
Fiat said that latest redesign has "stretched" the car to a total length of 406cm while the other external dimensions remaining the same, with a width of 169 cm, a height of 149 cm and a wheelbase of 251 cm.
Inside, the reworked cabin gains a newly styled dashboard with a more premium feel that's inspired by the larger Bravo and features deep-set gauges on the instrument panel, new audio and climate systems as well as circular side vents.
Moving on to the engine range, there's a new 1.4-liter gasoline unit featuring the company's MultiAir system which uses electrohydraulic valve management to reduce fuel consumption by controlling air directly via the inlet valves without using the throttle.
Fiat did not release any performance figures but the automaker said that compared to a conventional petrol engine of the same size, the MultiAir unit develops up to 10% more power and 15% more torque while cutting fuel consumption and emissions by up to 10%.
There's also a second generation 1.3-liter Mulitjet diesel with a new common rail injector that offers an improvement of around 2% in consumption and CO2 emissions.
As a first, all Euro5 petrol and diesel engines in the range will be fitted with a Start&Stop system as standard.
Finally, all Punto Evos will get seven airbags as standard, including a driver knee airbag, while there's also a new "Blue&Me–TomTom" infotainment system that manages telephone, navigation and information functions on a color touch-screen.
