Nano getting there for Ratan Tata signoff

A traumatic factory relocation from Singur in West Bengal to Sanand in Gujarat, a spate of fires, a gross misunderstanding of the customer and just plain bad luck threatened to topple Ratan Tata’s dream car.

The incredible Nano frenzy which gripped the country when it was launched in January 2008 sadly didn’t translate into sales when the car arrived in showrooms more than a year later.

No doubt, the Nano’s tough gestation was part of the problem but ironically it’s the tag of the world’s cheapest car that went against it.

While industry analysts, experts and the media lauded the Nano as the world’s cheapest car and marvelled at Tata’s frugal engineering and cost structure, customers didn’t take kindly to this tag. The Nano was seen as a car to own if you couldn’t afford anything else.

The truth is that this clever little car is much more than that. And that’s what Tata Motors failed to point out at the very beginning.
Enter the 2012 version of Nano, which isn’t dramatically different but comes with sufficient improvements to give it genuine appeal as a smart city car.

The bright range of colours, spruced up interiors and overall refinement have made the car cooler, younger and aimed it at college kids rather than a family on a bike.

The best bit is that all the improvements come with no change in price which (as long as you don’t shout it!) is still the Nano’s main selling point.

Tata Motors has changed tack too, and is talking about what’s nice (and not just the price) about the upgraded model to woo buyers back. The plan seems seems to be working. There’s a sharp increase in Nano sales and buyers who turned up their noses initially are now coming back. There’s a quiet optimism within Tata Motors too, and the company is hopeful that

Nano sales will climb back into five figures and even surpass the all-time high of 10,012 units of April 2011, sometime in this financial year. That’s pretty good going in a car market that’s threatening to tank.

So how good is the new Nano? From a practical point of view it’s pretty much the same but it now has a feel-good factor that was missing in the old car. It’s the small but tangible changes that have made all the difference.

A modified exhaust system has made the Nano sound more like a car than an auto-rickshaw and the embarrassing ‘phut-phut-phut’ sound, typical of two-cylinder engines, has been replaced by a more refined exhaust note.

The insides are largely unchanged but again, the beige dashboard, the contoured seats with richer fabrics and a few other embellishments have dramatically lifted the interior ambience and along with it, the perception of the car.

On potholed Mumbai streets, the Nano still feels quite bumpy but the revised suspension has given it a more mature ride. If there is a fix needed, it’s with the steering. It’s noticeably lighter than before but still too heavy for a car that weighs less than 700kg.

Power steering is now absolutely essential to take full advantage of the Nano’s astonishingly tight turning circle but that will only come much later.

In fact, you can expect constant upgrades on the Nano which is still in the early part of its lifecycle. There’s a more powerful three-cylinder petrol, a super-efficient diesel and other cosmetic changes in the pipeline.

Will this be enough for punters to flock to Nano showrooms? A sluggish economy is not the best climate to sell cars in but the tough market conditions could play to the Nano’s strength.
No other car is easier on the pocket and the Nano’s phenomenal fuel efficiency (the only petrol car to cross 25 kms per litre under test conditions) will be even more appreciated with petrol prices hitting record highs.

It’s still early days for the Nano; it has a long way to go. Besides, the core of the market has already moved beyond the Nano with demand shifting towards more substantial hatchbacks. But with no competition in the foreseeable future, the Nano has the bottom of the pyramid all to itself and the potential of that cannot be underestimated.

What can’t be underestimated either is the sheer grit of Ratan Tata who is determined to once again prove his critics (the same lot that ridiculed the Indica and the acquisition of Jaguar-Land Rover) completely wrong.

Tata wants to see the Nano at the top of the sales charts before he retires at the end of 2012. That would be quite a signoff by the doyen.

Hormazd Sorabjee is the editor of Autocar India