Review for Tata Nano India

Exterior Design

Logic says that when a car is designed in a restricted price bracket, it should be simple with straight line with easy to construct body panels from rudimentary dyes.

Not anymore. First look into the car and you will immediately fall in love with it. No one should ever believe that a back to basics object should look dull and bland. The nano, is easily one of the best and cutest looking cars on the road today. It’s an original clean sheet design with lots of proportionate curves and has a street presence that other small cars would die for.

Quite simply put, it actually looks more expensive than what it really is and key to its successful design must be credited to collaboration between Ratan Tata and I.DE.A, which played a important role in the exterior design.

The classic cab forward design looks chubby and egg-like, almost resembling a computer mouse and it draws admiring glances wherever it goes. I was driving a red non AC nano before testing the golden LX one, and boy count the number of heads it turns. Girls, especially, gave it thumbs up and asked for a ride.

The front looks cute with those huge petal shaped headlamps drawing your attention and seamlessly integrating with the curvy windshield and the huge trapezoidal bumper (LX model has fog lights superbly integrated into it) giving it its own identity which means that you would not mistake it for anything other than a nano.

Going to the sides, the curvy profile grows on you and you begin to admire the simplicity of the design, especially the lower half which has a character curve and houses cooling vents for the engine, highly functional. The huge glass area looks proportionate and lends it with loads of character. The 12 inch wheels may initially look awfully small, but for a car this size, are a perfect fit and gel well with the overall design.

Coming to the rear, it resembles the Indica, but in a good way. The tailgate is simple and the vertical taillights are seamlessly integrated with the rest of the design which looks good, if a bit plain. The rear bumper is thoughtfully designed with a central exhaust tip, again looking good and in the LX version, it also houses a rear fog lamp, feature not found in many cars thrice its price.

Overall, it’s a cute and timeless design, a hit especially with the girls, means that you draw admiring glances wherever you go and despite its increasing popularity, it will age very gracefully in years to come.

Only wish some more brighter colours were offered with the LX version rather than just 1 shade of yellow.

Chassis Engineering:
Design called for maximum utilization of space in a compact footprint and the only solution-place the engine in the rear to liberate huge amount of front space. And boy, it works!

Moving the wheels to all corners also forms a key to liberate maximum space (a lesson from Honda’s Man Maximum, Machine Minimum concept) and Tata wanted to keep the car as light as possible to gain maximum fuel efficiency and lower emissions. So an entirely new compact 2 cylinder all aluminum engine was designed to comply with this chassis, which itself is lightweight and aids handling.

All the mechanicals were tucked onto the rear including the transmission and the ingenious engineering tricks applied have worked wonders as far as packaging is concerned. The chassis feels solid, stiff and coupled with an all wheel independent suspension, makes for a good ride and handling package.

In an effort to save costs, the number of wheel bolts was reduced from 4 to 3, a second wiper blade was eliminated, fuel tank cap was done away with (you have to open the bonnet to fill fuel) and the hatch was glued to the rest of the body.

The front tyre is narrow (135/70R12) so as to maintain balance with the rear where all the weight is concentrated, which is provided with wider 155/65 R12 (tubeless in all versions), as in case of many high performance sports cars.

One gripe is that the stepney provided matches the front tyre size only, in case of a puncture, the rear tyres have to be repaired ASAP or else the dynamics will be affected adversely, pretty inconvenient to daily dwellers who will use the car in city streets.

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