Jay Leno Adds The Tata Nano To His Garage
Remember the Tata Nano? It is the world’s cheapest car and we reviewed it earlier here. Neither does Jay Leno need any introduction. The host of the Tonight Show has gone ahead and added the Tata Nano to his garage. Jay already has more than 100 cars and 90 motorcycles in his garage. Leno also writes for The Sunday Times and will soon be giving his opinion on the Nano. The Tata Nano he has bought could have been gifted by Tata Motors for obvious reason. It is the top end model sporting fancy accessories, such as alloy wheels .
Jay Leno dressed up in a sherwani (Indian traditional dress) and brought in Bollywood dancers to bring home the Nano. To go with the sherwani, and Leno’s hair, Jay chose a white colored Nano with the tri-color Indian colors painted on it. The Tata Nano is powered by a 624cc, twin-cylinder, gasoline engine. It produces 38 hp of (well …) power output and 51 Nm of torque. Don’t be misled by those figures as the Nano weighs just 615 kgs. There is no power steering on offer and reaching 100 km/h takes a lengthy 27.5 seconds. The only thing really going for the Nano is the compact dimensions and 60 miles per gallon mileage.
The Tata Nano has not been selling anywhere close to what the company expects it to. The plant capacity is close to 20,000 units per month, but Tata Motors has been able to sell less than 10,000 units a month. Thus the plant is running at only 50% capacity. The company is looking at exports to maximize sales of the Nano.
Faisal Ali Khan is the owner/operator of MotorBeam.com, a website covering the auto industry of India.
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Surely Jay should be wearing a denim sherwani?
I can think of two reasons the Nano is selling slowly. 1. People have higher aspirations. Just like the original Beetle is not viewed in Germany with rose-colored glasses as it is here (too reminiscent of the bad old postwar days), if you have a Nano, you're just telling the world you can't afford anything better. This is because... 2. It fails as a "classless" car like the Mini and 2CV. Rich and not-so-rich people bought both because they suited a purpose and had a special appeal. It's also not particularly practical. It can seat four people and can't carry much else. Neither can a Mini, but a 2CV could carry a lot with the rear seat removed or had in trucklet form and a Renault 4 was cavernous with its rear hatch. There's a reason all those cars are front-wheel drive. It frees up a lot more space than a rear-engine configuration. When I first saw a Nano, the first thing I thought was "missed opportunity." They would have been better off modernizing the 2CV design and marketing that. Ironically, I recall Citroen offering the old 2CV tooling to several Third World countries and getting no takers. In fact, Citroen developed the original chassis into the FAF (facile a fabriquer et facile a financer - easy to build and easy to finance) which was seen as a "second-class" car and didn't catch on. So Tata was let down by the same "not invented here" thinking that used to plague Detroit? Maybe.