bodacious Tata's revealed!!!

[KG]

NEW DELHI - India's Tata Motors on Thursday unveiled the world's cheapest car, bringing new mobility within the reach of tens of millions of people and nightmares to environmentalists, traffic engineers and safety advocates.

Company Chairman Ratan Tata, introducing the Nano — price tag $2,500 — during India's main auto show, drove onto a stage in a white version of the tiny four-door subcompact, his head nearly scraping the roof.

With a snub nose and a sloping roof, it can fit five people — if they squeeze. And the basic version is spare: there's no radio, no passenger-side mirror and only one windshield wiper. If you want air conditioning to cope with India's brutal summers, you need to get the deluxe version.

But it's cheap. The Nano's closest competitor here is the Maruti 800, a four-door that sells for nearly twice as much.

Tata, however, is targeting people moving up from the lower ends of India's transportation spectrum, where two-wheeled scooters selling for as little as $900 are often crammed with entire families.

MORE TATAs >>>> http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080110/ap_on_bi_ge/india_ultracheap_car

[asthmaticeog]

1. I'd like to see what they look like,

but I suspect a Google image search for "tatas" would yield predictable and entirely wrong results.

[Orsino]

4. The one pictured looks a bit like a Prius. n/t

[Historic NY]

5. the picture....

http://news.yahoo.com/nphotos/India-Auto-Expo-New-Delhi2C-India/photo//080110/481/3d494f271045473c9a3aa1c90b4f16cb//s:/ap/20080110/ap_on_bi_ge/india_ultracheap_car;_ylt=AkQCCOQ.UWLTTGTJs.8ZtGVv24cA

Thats tiny, its 4ft longer than a coffin. The last really cheap car here the Yugo didn't last it literally fell apart.

[hobbit709]

7. A friend of mine had a Yugo

He put a 120,000 miles on it but couldn't get parts for it after that.

[asthmaticeog]

14. Thank you for posting that. nt

[izzybeans]

2. Somehow I feel they would have to rebrand the Nano Tata in the states.

What? given our propensity for prosthetic enlargement and all.

[Atman]

10. Nano Tatas...sounds like a porn site...

for the small-breast fetish crowd.

Or maybe a really cool new music device Apple is working on! Imagine that...musical tatas. In stereo, of course.

.

[izzybeans]

12. It could be like that sex toy that plugs into the Ipod.

You could market it as a bachelorette party novelty.

[Historic NY]

18. Nano nano nano reminds me of Mork & Mindy.........

:silly:

[hobbit709]

3. Looks like a streamlined FIAT 500

what we called "snails with headlights" or "sardine cans on wheels"-from the fact that you'd see a whole Italian family packed into one back in the early 70's when I was stationed near Brindisi.

[helderheid]

6. This thread is useless without pictures.

x(

[baldguy]

15. The intertubes is yer freind

Looks real safe doesn't it?

http://www.autoblog.com/2008/01/10/what-2-500-buys-in-india-tata-nano-unveiled/

[DCKit]

17. Actually, the "egg" shape makes it pretty safe in front-end crashes...

but I wouldn't want to bet my life on a side-impact.

Additionally, judging from the cart-size wheels, I would assume it's meant for low-speed driving (which is exactly what they'll get with another 200 million cars on the road in India).

Overall, the fact that they could even build a fully enclosed, well-finished, fairly attractive car for $2.5K is amazing. Even with Lithium batteries, this could be converted to an all-electric vehicle with a 100+ mile range for less than $12K. Are you listening Detroit? Of course not.

[JesterCS]

19. hehe

makes my car look big.

[bunkerbuster1]

8. K&R'd for the subject header

Story's interesting too.

India's Bajaj tried to make inroads in the US with their snappy-looking line of scooters. I seem to recall hearing that the bikes, which retailed for under two grand, sold for about half that in the country of origin.

So I could see such a tin box selling for (say) five grand here in the States--if our safety regs permitted it, which they don't.

[Atman]

9. I was just reading that Tata might buy Jaguar and Land Rover from Ford

Ford is having a fire sale of all the car brands it ruined (except the Jaguar, I suppose, which actually got better under Ford because it couldn't get any worse). Apparently Tata is the lead contender to purchase the two nameplates. Ford is still studying whether or not to dump Volvo, but they're finding they've put so many Ford parts and systems into the Volvo that it might be next to impossible to entirely separate the two.

So, it looks as if Jaguars might go back to being utter pieces of crap...with curry.

.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

11. it is adorable. i love it

[izzybeans]

13. It seems like the perfect commuter car. I'd buy one.

[DCKit]

16. With crash worthiness, airbags, ESP, anti-lock brakes and emissions....

it would end up costing as much as the low-end cars already available.

All the above are mandated by the 2009 model year or just a bit later.