Size matters, baby

Our man muses on the tiny car that’ll take India by storm

March 2008

You’ve got to be living under a rock or the north of England if you haven’t heard of the Nano by now. It’s the tiny sensation that got the world’s biggest motor show (that’s Detroit for the non-car-nerds) talking. More than that, everyone we spoke to was trying to find it, probably with a magnifying glass, although it wasn’t there.

Tata motors has pulled off a spectacular marketing coup with the Nano. And talk about convenient – you won’t have to worry about these vanishing car spaces in places like Dubai as you’ll be able to park the Nano next to your desk. I know, I know, the Nano is not supposed to be exported for five years and then it will be to places not as flash for cash as the Gulf.

Hello? Has anyone noticed the burgeoning budget end of the Gulf car market lately, particularly in Saudi Arabia.

Developed to transport five people as uncomfortably as possible on India’s crowded roads, the Nano, priced at $2,500, really has moved the goalposts. Tata’s audacity has won plenty of admirers including

GM chief Rick Wagoner. These babies are so cool that next we’ll see Cameron Diaz trading in her eco-friendly Prius for a Nano.
The base model has a single windshield wiper, no sun visors, no passenger rear-view mirror and no air conditioning against the sauna-in-your-pants Indian heat. But a night out at Zinc or Peppermint costs more at times. There’s more sweat and there’s no windscreen wiper.

The price is causing predictable shock waves at the same time that people are finally starting to wonder what would really happen if the rest of the world decided that they, too, were entitled to a car in every driveway. If the major auto makers ignore the Nano it could be a case of “be afraid boys, be very afraid.”

No, I haven’t seen a Nano. Maybe I will when I stop by the Geneva Motr Show. Someone from Tata Motors could take a Nano there as carry-on.

But the upshot is Tata doesn’t have to take the Nano anywhere. If the Nano won’t go to Detroit or Geneva, Detroit and Geneva will have to … Get the picture.

We’re not talking some silly Lada situation here. The Tata guys are too smart. If you don’t believe me, ask Land Rover and Jag – in a lovely colonial role reversal Tata, the Indian auto giant, may well buy out these oh-so-British marques very soon. What’s the Test score boys?

Tata Motors knows it has created a car for very specific markets, particularly its own. After that, it’ll head to other highly populated, densely packed countries that are rapidly emerging into global markets.

But it’ll spill to other better-off markets too. Certainly Egypt and Iran would be in the frame. But I can see markets in Sharjah, much of Saudi Arabia and definitely Yemen.

And how about the slickness of Tata’s attempts to stitch up both ends of the rainbow? Tata wants the Nano at one end, Jaguar and Land Rover at the other. Will this affect the snob factor of Jag and Landie? Only time – and a trip down Jumeirah Beach Road – will tell.