SPY PICS: Fiat cooking up new Bravo

It may look like the Fiat Punto, but a second look at this heavily disguised test mule scuttling around the streets somewhere in Europe and digitally captured by Automedia spy shooters, suggests something a little bigger: An all-new Fiat Bravo perhaps?

Fiat CEO Alfredo Altaville is already on record as saying a new Bravo will be launched in 2016 to compete in the C-segment, these shots could be interpreted as little else than just that: An all-new Fiat small car, based on a global platform, aimed at the likes of Volkswagen Golf and Ford Focus and destined to eventually morph into three variants including a five-door hatch (as pictured here), a four-door sedan and, in 2017, a pseudo-SUV variant along the lines of the current Panda Trekking.

This comes in the wake of a recent announcement by Fiat management that the group aims to sell 1.9 million cars annually by 2018, helped along significantly by the Jeep brand, but also with the help of other marques such as Alfa Romeo and Fiat.

Fiat in Australia, which is currently dependent on its strong-selling 500 (of the 5758 Fiat passenger cars sold in 2014, the 500 accounted for 2995), could certainly do with a viable small-car contender to have something to throw at the likes of Mazda's "3", Hyundai's i30, or the Toyota Corolla.

Fiat has not had a small car in its local range since the Ritmo model (sold as the Bravo elsewhere) that was launched here in 2008 and discontinued a year later after disappointing sales.

Sources are suggesting the new Bravo will be built at Fiat's Tofas plant in Bursa, Turkey, which has a traditional, long-held connection with Fiat-Chrysler brands.