‘India’s National Engine’ Comes To An End

If there was one engine that popularised small diesel cars, it was the Fiat’s 1.3-litre diesel engine. This engine was used by at least five manufacturers starting from Maruti Suzuki to Tata to Chevrolet.

The engine had powered 24 different cars and SUVs. Known as Multijet by Fiat, DDiS by Maruti Suzuki, Smartech by Chevrolet, Quadrajet by Tata, and CRDi4 by Premier, it had earned the nickname of ‘India’s National Engine’ amongst car enthusiasts.

Some of the popular cars that used this engine are Maruti’s Dzire, Baleno, Swift, Breeza, Ignis, Ciaz, Ertiga and Tata’s Vista, Manza, Zest, Fiat’s Punto, Linea, etc.

Now, the engine has been discontinued and Fiat rolled out the last one on Friday after making more than 8 lakh copies of the same. The main reason for this is BS6 emission norms. Fiat is not planning to upgrade the engine as its two major customers, Tata Motors and Maruti Suzuki have moved on to different strategies.

Maruti Suzuki developed a 1.5-litre diesel that they have plugged in the Ertiga and the Ciaz.

Tata too made its own diesel engines, starting from 1.05 litre to 1.5 litres.

The end of this 1.3-litre engine also could well mark the end of Fiat’s road in India considering the fact that its current line-up has little to no demand.

“Our JV manufacturing facility FIAPL today produced the last BS4 1.3-litre Multijet engine. This dependable, legendary turbo-diesel Fiat engine has, over the years, powered many popular vehicles in India. With the BS6 emission regulation norms being implemented, production has now been discontinued as we are actively moving into the manufacturing of BS6 powertrains. FIAPL produced a total of 8,00,050 of these dependable1.3-litre turbo-diesel engines in the life-cycle. We remain fully committed to our customers and have a robust plan ensuring spare parts availability for the life of any Fiat vehicle equipped with this workhorse. Parts will available at all FCA authorised workshops for the next 10 years,” Fiat-Chrysler Automobiles India said in a statement.