Nano goes upmarket

The world’s cheapest car is set to get more expensive. The Tata Nano, the $3000 rear-engined, four-door, four-seat micro-car designed to get Indians off two wheels and onto four, is going upmarket and international.

While the original Nano might survive as an entry-level model in India, Tata Motors managing director, Karl Slym, says the next generation will evolve into a still affordable “smart city car”.

For all the hype that surrounds the original Nano, it has not been the sales success Tata hoped for when it was launched in 2009. Its creation was dogged by controversy over land grabs to build a factory and the habit of early examples of catching fire. Indians have also tended to shop further upmarket for their first car, as the Nano is perceived by some as admission of low income.

But the micro-car it has attracted global attention and much publicity for the Tata brand.

“Nano has certainly got a very global attention and we will do a lot more (with it),” Slym told motoring.com.au during a media round-table overnight at Tata’s massive Pune assembly plant and research and design centre in western India.

“It’s a canvas for us to be able to develop the future Nano.

“We still want it affordable of course, but more of the smart city car is where we would expect the transformation of Nano to be,” he said.

Walkinshaw Group division, Fusion Automotive, will start selling the Tata Xenon one-tonne LCV in Australia from October. The current Nano is not part of its future model import plans but the second generation has not been ruled out.

Tata Motors has just revealed a massive product upgrade, expansion and international export program as part of plan dubbed Horizonext (LINK). The new Nano, which was loosely previewed to by the 2011 Pixel Geneva show concept, will be rolled out in the first few years of that.

That car will be a key part of a complete overhaul of Tata’s passenger car range, which currently offers only the Nano and a small group of ageing B-segment sedans and hatches.

The existing Nano is scheduled to receive a series of upgrades in coming months as well. A CNG-powered model is about to go on-sale, power steering will be introduced this year and a diesel model is under development. A hatchback body is also said to be not far away.

Asked if the second generation would expand into a Nano family, Slym joked: “A Nano family? I am just picturing Mummy Nano, Daddy Nano and Baby Nano…

“If It means that similar to other vehicles there will be a proliferation of the variants in Nano, then yes,” he said.

But it does not seem the new Nano could spawn a group of bodystyles. Instead Slym suggested the Xenon Tuff Truck concept, created by the Walkinshaw Automotive Group for Fusion’s launch at the National 4x4 and Outdoors show in Melbourne today could be the way to go. The Tuff Truck has cosmetic add-ons but no sheetmetal or mechanical changes.

“There’s lots to do with the Nano,” Slym said.

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