All set to ride on the success of the Palio, which has drawn customers to its showrooms in hordes, Fiat is launching the new Palio Weekend and Adventure estates later this month to replace the existing Siena Weekend. These new models are essentially face-lifts of the original Siena Weekend but also come with a host of other improvements. Though differences between the Palio Weekend and Adventure are largely cosmetic, the two cars are pretty disparate in character. The regular Weekend is aimed at the utility conscious whilst the Adventure is more a lifestyle vehicle for the outdoors.

Estate cars are every bit as comfortable and easy to drive as regular saloon cars with the added flexibility of carrying huge amounts of luggage. This makes them great holiday vehicles to take the family and all your bags to your destination in comfort, speed and safety. But in India, estates have an image problem. They are seen as load-haulers and workhorses and lack the style of a traditional saloon. The original Weekend was an extremely clever and well-engineered car which we rated highly but just didn&46;t click.

With its new estate variants Fiat hope to make consumers look at estate cars differently and jump-start the flagging estate car market.