This was India’s first hot-hatch

Everyone loves a hot hatch. Jeremy Clarkson and James May agree that hot-hatches are the most fun cars to drive, more so than a supercar. You can fling a hatchback into a tight bend without needing to worry about damaging the front splitter. Drivers to the grocery shop have never been more fun. You can enjoy all the driving pleasures while carrying 4 more passengers and still have enough boot space for a 2-day family trip to Lonavla.

The Big Launch

While the rest of the world was enjoying the joys of a VW Golf GTI and Peugeot 205 GTI, India was starved of these pleasures. It wasn’t until this car that Indians got a taste of hot hatches. It is 2002, and the 800, Zen, and Alto are ruling the car market. These cars were great value for money, and introduced luxury amenities like air conditioning to the middle class. But you wouldn’t call these cars fun to drive. They were light as a feather, like most hot hatches, but the engines struggled to produce 50 horsepower, making it painstakingly slow.

Now, the Italian manufacturer, Fiat, enters the Indian market, seeking a piece of the pie. They released the Palio, which got a moderate response. Early Fiat cars were riddled with reliability woes, and their customers were left stranded due to the weak service network. To rebuild its reputation, Fiat came up with the Fiat Palio S10.

Guess the person who endorsed the Fiat Palio S10. As the badge S10 may suggest, it was India’s favourite son, Sachin Tendulkar. Fiat went all in with the S10 by getting Sachin to unveil it in 2003. On the newspaper and magazine cover pages, you would find an image of Sachin standing next to a bright-yellow Fiat. An advertisement could not get better than that.

Today, we will find out what made this car so revered by car enthusiasts and why its name has become so obscure over the years.

Looks

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With the Palio, looks weren’t its strong point. But you park it next to Sachin, and you would be tempted to buy one. The regular Palio looked contemprorary for its time and you wouldn’t call it striking.

But with the S10, Fiat decided to liven it up. They offered the S10 with a blazing yellow colour scheme as standard. It came with 14″ alloy wheels, which were like fire to a caveman in 2002. The Palio was the first hatchback to offer alloys. Furthermore, to make its owners feel special, you got a unique plaque on the side of the car to show the production number of your limited-edition Palio.

To go with the alloys, plaque and the bright yellow paint, you also got Sachin’s signature imprinted on the hood, sides and the rear. They made sure to spam the Master Blaster’s name all across the vehicle. And that is not necessarily a bad thing to have India’s most revered athlete to sign on your car.

The S10 stood out like a lighthouse in the ocean with its yellow paint scheme. But with production limited to 500 cars, you rarely saw one on the roads. If you ever see one now, it would still stand out in the crowd.

Interior

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You could list all the Palio’s features on a small piece of paper and would still have plenty of room left. Some of these features include Air Conditioning, manual climate control, casette player, radio, cigarette lighter, and that is about it. The 1.6 GTX variant got safety features like steering airbags and ABS, but these were omitted on the S10.

The cabin is made out of cheap grey plastic, with the only soft-touch materials being the seats. It may look bright as the sun on the outside, but on the inside, it is all gloomy. The only thing that livens it up is the silver garnish on the dashboard.

But if you are interested in the S10, the cabin’s look would be the least of your worries. You get a beautiful green-lit orthodox speedometer, and that is enough luxury you need in such a car. These aren’t some ordinary dials in the display, but Veglia Borletti ones. For the uninformed, Veglia Borletti is an Italian manufacturing company that used to make dials for Italian supercars from Ferrari, Maserati and Lancia. You can proudly boast to your friends that your car shares components with some Italian greats.

The Heart Of the Hot Hatch

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Now here is where stuff gets really riveting. Pop open the hood, and you are greeted with a beautiful 1.6L naturally-aspirated 16 valve engine. You would struggle to find many electronic gizmos in the engine bay, unlike in modern vehicles, and that is the beauty of it. The same engine was also found in the 1.6 GTX, but in the S10, it had minor tweaks to the gearbox ratios for improved acceleration. Fiat also offered a 1.9L Diesel with the Palio. Despite having a bigger fuel capacity that the Creta-diesel, the Palio 1.9 produced only 63 horsepower and 118 Nm of torque. Mind you, these numbers are still a country mile better than any other hatchback at the time. It may have been a gaz-guzzler, but it is pretty interesting to see Fiat’s unconventional approach with the Palio.

The 1.6 petrol was an absolute delight. It churned out a whopping 100 horsepower. Bear in mind that the Palio also weighs slightly more than 1 tonne. To put into perspective, these are similar figures to the outgoing 1.0 turbo-petrol from Fronx. These numbers were a revelation 23 years ago.

This engine is mated to a simple 5-speed manual. With no ABS, ESC or Traction Control, the driver is in complete control, and there is no electronic intervention to hamper the driving experience. You sacrifice these safety features for an enthralling drive every time you step on the gas. Light body, manual transmission and a naturally-aspirated engine which revs upto 7,000 rpm is the perfect recipe for a hot hatch.

Why is it Unknown?

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In hindsight, the Palio seems like a great deal. Powerful engine, exclusivity, attractive looks and Sachin’s signature on the bonnet, it had it all. But this was launched in an era where fuel efficiency and affordability were kings. The Palio S10 costs more than 6.2 lakh rupees (on-road, Mumbai). And for that price, you could get a top-of-the-line Esteem or the Bolero.

Nowadays, with limited edition models. Manufacturers launch a batch of these special editions, and if it garners a good response, they launch a few more batches. In the end, the limited edition is no longer limited. But with the S10, production was ceased at 500. Fiat decided it was done with the limited-edition gimmick.

Back then, Fiat was notorious for its terrible after-sales service. The engine wasn’t the most reliable either. An unreliable engine and an abysmal after-sales service are a car owner’s worst nightmare. To worsen this nightmare, the 1.6 was heavy on the pockets. The effective mileage of the S10 was around 8-10 kmpl.

Customers back then wondered why should they spend 6 lakh rupees on a Fiat hatchback, when Maruti Suzuki, Mahindra and Tata offer cheaper cars with better after-sales service. And if you are interested in one today, it is not going to be any cheaper either. There are very few well-maintained S10 left today, and the few units that do exist must be owned by car-enthusiasts who adore it. Getting it off their hands wouldn’t be cheap and neither would be its spare parts.

The First Indian Hot-Hatch

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The Volkswagen Polo GT has been the face of hot hatches for a long time and dominated the entirety of 2010s. Manufacturers have tried replicating the success of the Polo but came up short, like with the i20 N-line, Tiago JTP, Altroz Racer and the Baleno RS. Many people have the misconception that the Polo kicked off the hot hatchback culture in India, but they would be wrong. Fiat were the pioneers of this segment with the Palio S10 and Palio GTX, and their effort to ignite the enthusiast culture in India is commendable.

The brilliance of the 1.6 Palio may not have been appreciated in 2003, but now with roads being overcrowded by identical SUVs, one can truly appreciate driving machines such as this.

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