41 Fiat Doblo's were handed over to Coca Cola Enterprises Belgium for its merchandisers at the "Espace del Goutte" in Ophain.

The truly amazing Fiat Doblo continues to win hearts, not only of individual motorists, but also of fleet managers. Coca Cola Belgium elected recently the versatile car for its merchandisers. They wanted not only a roomier, more versatile and better performing car, but are also working towards a greener fleet, and the Doblo really fits the bill here.

We attended last week the press conference organised by Fiat Group Automobiles Belux, where 41 sparkling red Doblo’s were handed over to the Coca Cola Merchandisers…

Hans Knol ten Bensel

Emilio Herrera, Deputy Market General Manager of Fiat Group Automobiles Belux opened the conference ...

...and expressed his satisfaction about the choice of Coca Cola Enterprises Belgium. He highlighted again the excellent ecological characteristics of the Doblo, notably its very limited CO2 emissions of 129 grams per km. The choice is completely in line with Fiat’s philosophy of producing dynamic ecological vehicles. Mr. Herrera pointed out that over the last 3 years, the independent organisation Jato Dynamics had declared Fiat the leader in Europe on producing “green” cars, with average emissions of all produced Fiat models of a mere 127,8 grams per km.

This leadership position in terms of emissions is made possible through the adoption of state-of-the art modern engine technologies, continued Mr. Herrera, like the Multijet in the Diesel engines and the MultiAir in the latest generation of gasoline engines, such as the new 900 cc TwinAir two cylinder engine recently introduced in the 500, coming next month on our market. This engine has a CO2 emission level of merely 92 gr/km.

Yves Pirard, key account Manager of the Fiat Group highlighted the Fiat Groups worldwide position and strategy,

and Bart Debusschere, Product Specialist Converters of Fiat Professional explained further the outstanding characteristics of the Doblo.

Coca Cola selected for its fleet the 1.3 litre Multijet II Common Rail engine, appreciated for its 66 kW peak power and notably its ample torque of 200 Nm at 1500 rpm. The merchandisers were able to drive the car before purchase and obviously liked it... The Coca Cola fleet manager looked also at its excellent economy with an average consumption of 4.9 litres 100 km and CO2 emissions of 129 grams per km, as said before. To improve things further, the chosen cars have a start stop function installed, and are also equipped with Diesel Particle filter and last but not least Fiat Eco:Drive. On a USB stick plugged in the dashboard the  driving style data are stored of the individual driver, which are then analysed with Fiat software. The driver can learn from this, and it is worth noting that Coca Cola will put all its  drivers through a fully fledged eco driving course.

The Coca Cola Doblo’s are also equipped with Tom Tom GPS, manual airco, rear parking sensors and the “Blue & Me” Pack with Bluetooth functioning for safe use of the GSM and voice recognition.

Last but not least, a network of selected dealers in Belgium and Luxemburg will provide professional after sales service and assistance.

To conclude, Mr. Philippe de Selliers, VP Field Sales and Logistics of Coca Cola Enterprises Belgium...

...explained the Coca Cola policy of developing a “greener” car fleet, and is investing not less than 13 million Euro to do this.

The adoption of the Doblo as the fleet car for its merchandisers is an important step in this “green” direction...

Hans Knol ten Bensel