Ratan Tata Reminisces The Nano Says It Was For All Our People

The last we heard of the radical mini hatchback of its time, the Tata Nano was back in late 2019 before we bid adieu to it. Fourteen years after it was first unveiled, Ratan Tata, Chairman Emeritus of Tata Sons, has taken to Instagram to explain the reason why the mini hatchback was conceived.

 

 

 

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According to Ratan Tata, seeing Indian families on scooters, specifically with as many as three or four passengers, travelling in slippery conditions was one of the motivating factors behind the Nano’s creation. His initial idea, Ratan Tata reveals, was to find ways to make two-wheelers safer, which further evolved to somewhat of a dune buggy and then eventually turned into what we know as the Nano. He stated, “The Nano was always meant for all our people.”

While development work began in 2005, the Tata Nano first broke cover in 2008 at the Auto Expo in Delhi. Tata stuck to its word and the Nano became the ‘cheapest car ever’ with an introductory price of Rs 1 lakh. At the time, this seemed like a game changer as it showed up in an age where Tata believed having a car was more of a necessity than just a luxury.

The Nano was only 3 metres long and was powered by a tiny 38PS, 626cc motor that could propel the car to over 100kmph on the road. The hatchback had a trunk only accessible from the inside (in the pre-facelift model) no AC, no power steering and no power windows in the base model. It was also devoid of any airbags and Tata took cost-cutting to a new high as the car did not feature an external fuel filler cap too. That did not stop the hype though, as Tata claimed, before its official launch in 2009, the Nano had received a whopping 2.03 lakh pre-bookings!

Unfortunately, the Nano hit a lot of roadblocks, including shifting of production to a new plant which led to delays; various incidents of Nanos reportedly catching fire just hours after leaving the showroom, and a severe lack of safety kit. Eventually, sales took a severe nosedive, with only 297 units of the car produced and 299 sold during the period of January-September in 2018. In June 2019, the company sold 3 and produced just one Nano. Eventually, the country’s stricter crash test norms, the upcoming BS6 emission norms and Tata Motors Tata shifting its focus to the Impact Design architecture put the final nail in the coffin for the Nano.

Sure, the Tata Nano had a very turbulent journey. But, it was still an aspirational attempt. Unfortunately, it being placed in an extremely niche segment, not adapting to consumers’ changing demands and its launch happening at a time when customers swayed toward bigger and more premium models killed interest for the ‘cheapest car ever’.