[v1p3r]

Ok, this is just a representation of facts printed in ACI this month. It makes me wonder WHY anyone would buy a Fiat Palio Stile 1.1:

1. The Palio has the WORST city mileage of all. 10.2 kmpl, compared to 12.3 for the Spark and 12.1 for the Xing.

2. The Palio is the SLOWEST of all. It is the only car which does not even cross 140. It stops dead at 132 kmph.

3. The Palio is the SLOWEST in in-gear pulls. 20-80 in 3rd takes 15.1 seconds for the Spark, and 13.19 seconds for the Xing. The Xeta, which is similar to the Stile in many respects, does it in 15.25 seconds. The Palio takes 19.98 seconds! That's almost 5 seconds off its nearest rival! It is 9-14 seconds off on the 40-100 4th pull! And it does a 20 second 0-100.

4. The Palio is the 2nd WORST to brake. Only the Indica takes 0.83m more to stop from 80 kmph. So much for safe 'European' cars.

All this would be ok if the car were dirt cheap and backed up by great service. I mean, if Tata were to give something worse than this as their 1-lakh car, millions would lap it up. BUT, the Palio is the 2nd most EXPENSIVE of the lot. It is a full Rs 75,000 more expensive than its nearest factual competitor, the Xeta. And more expensive than the shootout winner, the Xing.

Now, my question is, why buy it? The Indica is just as safe, the Spark/Wagon R/Zen/Santro/Indica are easier to drive, all of them except the Spark are cheaper to buy, and all of them are cheaper to run in town. And we all know about Fiat's legendary A.S.S.

All figures are from this month's ACI shootout.