Lara Dutta steals the Fiat 500 launch

Lara dutta sparkles at the launch

Bollywood hottie Lara Dutta unveiled the cute Fiat 500 car in Mumbai last night. With a leaner look and fresh tan, she attrached as many shutterbugs as the new Fiat car.

Adding to the glam quotient was dancer turned actress Isha Sherwani, leaving the audience spellbound with her stupendous performance.



Master percussionist Taufique Qurashi & his gang enthralled the guests with their gig.

The evening also saw some off-beat art by new-age artist Jayesh Sachdev who drove the Rs 15 lakh and splashed colours to make the floor his canvas.

Jayesh's work of art... that's what he said ;)

Ooops! Lara spontaneously hops on to the bonnet of the 500

Fiat 500 launched and there’s lots more to come

The cute round headlamp, the naughty moustache shaped logo & chrome lines on the nose and irresistibly bubbly overall appearance makes you feel like owning one. Yup, that’s the effect that Fiat 500’s timeless design has on most people.

Before I forget, the adorable two-door Fiat 500 is being launched in India today! Not that people here will be killing each other to buy one, simply because it will cost a whopping - Rs 15 lakhs. Yeah, it’s simply a repositioning effort by Fiat India to revive the company’s limping image. Seriously, the firm needs a strong dose of Viagra to give other carmakers a ‘stiff’ competition.

Fiat has a few more tricks up its sleeves, like two new world-class models --- the Bravo and more importantly the Linea. Fiat Linea is a mid-sized sedan, which should debut in September 2008. About 70 % of Linea will be locally produced which assures low cost & taxes. The sedan will sport Fiat’s tried and tested 1.3 multi-jet engines with 95 BHP. Following Linea’s footsteps will be the Grand Punto and already mentioned the Bravo.

Coming back to the micro sized Fiat500. Under the tiny little bonnet, you'll find one of these three powerful engines - a 1242cc, 69 bhp petrol, a 1368cc or 100 bhp twin-cam version of the same engine and the 1248cc, 75 bhp turbodiesel MultiJet, the same is use in the Maruti Swift diesel.
Believe it or not but you can customise the new 500 in as many as 500,000 different combinations, including body, interior and seat colour, stickers, wheel rims, bonnet trims, nudge bars and wing mirror cases. The car is 3.55 metres in length and features 7 airbags including a knee-airbag. The Fiat500 comes with a five star rating in EuroNCAP tests.

Despite all those features and the 500’s cuddlesome image and a price tag that could get you the recently launched Volkswagen Jetta or the Honda Civic, I think we’ll give it a miss for now…

More pictures from the launch coming your way soon... Visit www.fiat500.com