I recently bought the 1.2 ELPS Palio at Chennai. Its a superb car, roomy interiors, good riding comfort.
Market rumours are that it has a poor fuel consumption. on the contrary for a car for its weight its gives an acceptable fuel consumption of 10.5 to 11 kmpl in city. What one forgets is that its the most safe car in its class as compared to the Santro or the Indica. So its upto the user to choose between safety and fuel. From what I hear from Santro users, there is not much of a difference between the 2 in terms of the fuel consumption.
The interiors are however tacky and Fiat could have improved upon them consdering the feedback they would have recvd from UNO owners. Also FIAT has to be more responsive to their customers if they are looking at India as a long term investment.
Update - July 2004.
Its about 17 months sine I purchased this vehicle. No issues so far. Comfortable ride. No maintenance problems except for the routine six monthly services. However I find that Fiat has not been pushing the product unlike the Tata and Hyundai, nor trying to rectify the poor public perception of FIAT. A great car going waste!!!!