Fiat Bravo. Photo by netcarshow.com
After one year and half in the Brazilian market, the compact Bravo has received its first update in order to stop sales decrease of last months. This car, that has been positionated in an upper place of C segment (comparing to its European brother), has got a new automatic transmission called Dualogic Plus which offers several driving features such as the ‘Creeping’, in which the car detects when releases his foot from brake pedal and then automatically begins a slight displacement forward, without using the accelerator pedal (it helps when parking). Besides when using the feature Auto-Up Shift Abort, the car can switch to a higher gear in case of speed resumption, without loosing torque and power. Other features include Radio NAV with 6.5″ screen navigator.
Fiat Bravo. Photo by netcarshow.com
The Bravo is one of Fiat’s offer in small ‘C’ segment in Brazil. So far they have sold (from Nov/10 to Apr/12) around 15.000 units, from which 11.827 were sold in 2011, a small number compared to other competitors like Toyota Corolla (2011: 53.147), Hyundai i30 (35.717), or Ford Focus (27.611)*. But things are not getting better for the beauty Bravo, available with 1.8 16V 132hp or T-Jet 16V 152hp. This year its sales have decreased 6% explained partly because of general fall of the whole Brazilian market (down 3%) but also because of arrival of better competitors: new generation of Honda Civic (+31%), Chevrolet Cruze (new model) and VW Jetta (+671%), all of them ‘C’ segment sedans and no Hatchback as the Bravo. Certainly Brazilians prefer large compacts and that’s why Fiat offers also the Linea as the sedan version of Bravo, but not even this sedan is gaining a position in the market. Therefore, Fiat Brazil, besides the update of Bravo and next facelift of Linea, should accelerate the arrival of new generation of these models and gain more market share (in 2011 was only of 6.1%) in this growing segment, that got a market share of 11.7% in 2011, the third largest one and even larger than small pickup segment (11.4%)**
Information from autoesporte.com.br
* bestsellingcarsblog.com
** FGW data base
Fiat Group World 
I tthink that linea is rather fiat punto with bigger trunk
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You are right. Linea is sedan version of Punto and they share platform and interior. But in some markets the Linea is sold with big engines (up to 152 HP) and better especifications rising its price and presence and that’s why it becomes ‘C’ segment. We are taking about Brazil and Turkey.
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