Fiat Automobili Srbija starts production of body parts for new models in late September 2011

The first body for one of the two new models to be assembled at Fiat Automobili Srbija (FAS) will be finished late this month, most probably on September 29th, Danas daily learns.

The prototypes of the new models to be produced in Kragujevac have already been made, and people will be able to see them (without taking photos) at the Fiat development center in Turin in mid-October. These new automobiles from the Kragujevac-based plant will have their world premiere at the Automobile Show in Geneva in March 2012, after which, as it is announced, their assembly-line production should kick off at FAS.

What we already know is that the plant in Kragujevac will be producing automobiles of B class (or segment), and that one of them will be a five-seat car, while the other will have seven seats. The former will be a city car, while the latter will be a family automobile, and the plan is to produce between 200,000 and 300,000 these vehicles a year. The Kragujevac-based plant is expected to start producing 200,000 automobiles a year as of 2013, while the full production capacity should be achieved until 2015.

Since the reconstruction of facilities of former Zastava factory and their equipping with an up-to-date production equipment are close to end, one of these reconstructed production halls will be put in operation in late September. After that, one or two reconstructed production units should be put in operation every month until the year's end, whereas the trial production of one of the two announced models is expected to start in the first half of December. Then a break will follow and last until the beginning of the assembly-line production. That time will be used to fix possible errors in the production process and to promote a new model, which will be offered to the markets worldwide, the U.S. and European markets in particular.

Workers from Kragujevac in Japan

A group of workers of FAS will soon go to Japan to learn how to use state-of-the-arts Komatsu presses, which will be installed at the production plant Preseraj whose equipping cost EUR 200 million. During this summer, a large number of workers spent few weeks at Fiat's factories in Poland and Italy attending various trainings, which are also organized at the Polytechnic School and the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering in Kragujevac.