Tata Nano

by CarLustBlog.com at 4:06 AM PDT, June 9, 2009

You knew this was coming. Is it gutless? You betcha. Is it cheap? Of course--it's designed to be the cheapest production car on the planet. Does it prove, like so many before it, that necessity truly is the mother of invention? Absolutely.

So, Car Lust material? Well, yeah. I mean, c'mon - it even comes in hot pink! How lusty is that?

But wait - it gets better. As numerous news outlets are pointing out, Tata is planning on bringing this little bastion of affordable motoring to the United States. Naturally, this begs the question--will it follow the path laid down by the VW Beetle, burrowing a place into our automotive hearts, or will it simply rust out of our consciousness like the Citroen 2CV?
To help us answer that question, let's run through the specs:

• 2 cylinder, 33 horsepower engine
• 4 speed manual transmission
• 0-43 mph in 14 seconds
• Top speed of 75 miles per hour
• 47 miles per gallon
• Drum brakes all around
• Seats four

If any of this sounds familiar, it should. Consider the following specs:

• 2 cylinder, 28 horsepower engine
• 4 speed manual transmission
• 0-60 mph in a glacial epoch or two
• Top speed of 75 miles per hour
• 34+ miles per gallon
• Byzantine power brake system with weird and proprietary green goo
• Seats four... I think

Those would be the specs for the Citroen 2CV, which was nearly as successful in the US market as Gamelin was against the Wehrmacht, and that was against '50s and '60s competition. Though I have no doubt that the Nano is nowhere near as agricultural as the Deux Chevaux, it still doesn't change the fact that a stock Yugo GV could run circles around it. The only advantage the Nano would have against other new cars would be its price, which I guarantee you would be well above its legendary $2,500 price after US emissions and safety equipment are bolted on.
None of this, however, means that Tata's first effort in the US is completely doomed. Honda originally made a modest living in the US selling kei cars, after all. Assuming the Nano's price tag doesn't swing into Smart ForTwo territory (or, realistically, Nissan Versa territory) and assuming its reliability doesn't drift into Warsaw Pact territory, the Nano could be a small hit among the East Cost urban-dwelling college student crowd.
I doubt it, though.
What are your thoughts? Does the Nano have a prayer, or is it just going to be a strange footnote in American automotive history? For whatever it's worth, I still want one.
The pink Nano pictured above is from Flickr user bbjee; the more conservatively colored one comes from Flickr user ethnu.
--David Colborne