TATA nano - A billion dreams fulfilled.

This could've come from the Tatas only. The world's cheapest car - cheap only for the price tag but rich in features & design - was launched by the Tatas on Monday, 23rd of March 2009. Tatas are one of the handful Indian businessmen who honour their commitments & take pride in putting the common indian first. The nano is not a dream fulfilled of Ratan Tata only, but also of a billion+ Indians. It instills a sense of pride in every Indian to have achieved a milestone in the automobile industry worldwide with our frugal engineering capabilities & out-of-the-box thinking. The world is awed with disbelief that such a feat has been achieved. Everyone thought it was impossible to built a $2500 or a one lakh rupee car. People said - It will be more of a golf-cart like thing with rexine covers & all. But see the wonder called 'nano'. Not only is it a fully built car but beautiful at that, exceeding all emission & safety standards. There are features that are even absent in the more expensive A & B segment cars like tubeless radials, digital fuel gauge, tripmeter, AC with heater (yes the Maruti 800 AC does'nt have a heater), booster brakes, power windows, front & rear fog lamps, central locking & power windows.

And what a better time to launch it - the economic slowdown (for India, recession for many countries incl. the US) with all its gloom needed a cheer-up. Though the Indian auto industry is doing better despite the slowdown nano is sure to boost up the morale all around. Suddenly the buzz in the market has increased. People are discussing 'nano' features, comparing it with the "better" cars, looking for which model to book & the like. Many of my friends have print-outs from the nano website, with all its features & specs and I'm being called upon to discuss & suggest. (Ya I'm bragging myself here - but I'm an auto-enthusiast too)

I am a fan of the 'nano' since its inception & the photographs you see here are shot by me & a dear friend of mine at the AutoExpo '08. Drove 500+ kms in a single day for the beauty called TATA nano & it overwhelmed me when I first saw her before my eyes. When I reached the TATA stall it was late in the evening (it took 2+ hours to park our car near Pragati Maidan). There was a huge crowd, only comparable to the 'Kumbh Mela' outside the TATA stall, slowly ( a snail seemed faster that day) moving in. When our turn came, the police blocked the entry gate. It felt all our pains were to go in vain. We were about to move out but suddenly the policemen guarding the gate had a change of mind. They removed all the barriers & the crowd shouting with joy barged in. We just flowed with the crowd & flowed without an effort to the nano display. There she was - a beauty of design & engineering excellence, on a huge platform surrounded by a sea of men, women & children. All awestruck & admiring. While the common man was happy that he can now afford a car the better offs were saying - "Ek to leni padegi" - & that included me & my friend. Trust me it was hysteria all around & proudly at that.

I have double reason to feel proud of - First I'm an Indian & secondly I come from Uttarakhand - from where the first nanos will roll out. Ever since the Tatas decided for a factory for nano, Uttarakhand (then known as Uttaranchal), was the frontrunner. The then Chief Minister Pt N.D. Tiwari put all his efforts to bring nano to Uttarakhand. Tatas though opened a factory in Pantnagar in UA but nano for other reasons went to Singur. It was a blessing in disguise for the Tata factory in UA which till then only manufactured the "Chhota Haathi" ACE that the Singur crisis happened. Also because the ACE and nano team is headed by the same guys esp. the brilliant & inspirational Girish Wagh, the production line was easily modified to manufacture nano. Let me here acknowledge Girish Wagh - a young engineer - who is the brain behind both ACE & nano. His father too had served TATA Motors on the Indica project.

It was a lot of hard work, ingenuity & out-of-the-box thinking by the team that made possible a full-fledged car with a price tag to drool over. There were so many hurdles that came right from the design stage to the production, but TATA & the team kept their promises. Many may argue that it is actually going to cost more than a lakh so how come the promise was fulfilled. It was if you take into account that the promise was made many years back & since then inflation has increased a lot. If you take the value of nano today & compare it with prices years ago, when nano was promised - it will be actually going below that one lac rupee mark. And if this argument does not satisfy you enough, nano at even Rs. 1.12L (base model) is still the cheapest & equally affordable.

It has tubeless tyres & digital fuel gauge as standard for all models. Even the 3 times priced Santro can't boast of that. AC on CX & LX models is really better than the Maruti 800AC & even has a heater which is absent in the 800AC. Though it is smaller from the outside viz-a-viz the Maruti 800 by about 5% but from the inside it has 21% more room. It is almost 20cms higher than the Alto so 6 feeters can easily drive it with a few cms to spare. Engine power is almost equal to Maruti 800 with 50kg lesser weight (on the standard nano). The engine is all aluminium - the first on this category of cars. LX & CX come with vaccum assisted brakes (though the brakes are drum type) so as to make braking easy & efficient. Though it is a 4 seater but what is good news for us Indians is that it is 55mm more wider than Maruti 800. So we'll be using it as a 5 seater as we do to all our Marutis just with a bit more room. The LX model features central locking, body colored bumpers & ORVMs, power windows & even front & rear fog lamps. And that (LX) model with all the goodies is still well short of the Rs.2L mark on road. Far less than the humble Maruti 800STD which has none of the creature comforts mentioned above (neither do its higher priced siblings).

And imagine what mileage it gives to you - an impressive 23.6kms to a litre of petrol - my Yamaha RX135 gives me only a little more, while my 800 (the most fuel efficient petrol car currently) gives an overall 16 to a litre.



Just check the specs & features at tatanano.com & i bet you'll want to go ahead & book the nano.
The forms are available for Rs.300/- (Rs.200/- if you book online)at:
a. Select SBI branches
b. Tata Motor Dealerships
c. Croma Outlets
d. Westside Stores
e. Tata Indicom Exclusive Stores
f. World of Titan Showrooms