Fiat will build the Punto's replacement in Poland

News about FCA (Fiat Chrysler Automobiles) continues to dominate the week. The roadmap set out by the group’s chief executive, Sergio Marchionne, who presented it last Tuesday at the shareholders’ meeting, has raised new questions that are gradually coming to light. One of them is the future of the successor to the Fiat Punto, whose details were not much discussed at that presentation.

Automotive News has learned from recent reports that this model will finally be produced at the Polish plant in Tychy, alongside the Fiat 500 and the Lancia Ypsilon. Fiat will invest close to 570 million euros in those facilities, specifically to adapt the production lines and acquire new machinery, according to the Polish newspaper Puls Biznesu.

In order to meet the new production demands, Fiat plans to hire 420 new workers who will join the plant’s current workforce of 3,000. According to the same newspaper, almost 96% of the vehicles to be manufactured there will be exported to other markets, including North America. The estimated annual production for the model that will succeed the Punto is 180,000 units per year.

The successor will go on sale in 2016 and will be based on a stretched version of the same platform used by the Lancia Ypsilon. Within the range it will sit between the 500 and the 500L, models with which, according to Automotive News, it will share its first name, as the name 500 Plus is being considered. The current Punto is built at the Italian Melfi factory, whose assembly lines will be used for the new Jeep Renegade from June and for the 500X, Fiat’s twin of the compact SUV, from September.

Via | Automotive News