At the risk of setting myself up for ridicule....

[Baz]

....I am going to publicly state, here and now, that should Tata eventually decide to market their new NANO here in the U.K. at anything resembling a sensible price, I will be at the top of the list to buy one!

 

The base model:

 

 

Summert a little jazzier (and therefore less attractive IMHO):

 

 

Space for four inside:

 

 

Read about it here:

 

http://www.autotrader.co.uk/EDITORIAL/C ... 39036.html

 

I absolutely love it! It reminds my why I was so disappointed that they stopped producing the Citroen 2CV before I was in the position to buy a new one....I think we have a spirtual successor here!

[retrogeezer]

I think it's pretty cool for a town car.....trouble is, it will be £4-5k time it gets here.And if that can be produced by Tata for £1200, how come the Citroen C1 and it's clones are so expensive?

[Mr Lobster]

As a town car that looks pretty good. Only the base model is sensible though and that would be the one I would want, when its gets alloys and colour coded bumpers its stops making sense.

[wuvvum]

Wonder if those wheels are the same PCD as an AX?I agree with Baz though - if that car makes it to these shores at under, say, £3.5K, I might have to break my vow never to buy a brand new car. Not only is it cheap, I think it's quite cool too. Have to be the base model though.

[Richard]

I'm sure the Hindustan Ambassador (Morris Oxford) was the best part of £10k by the time it was made available for sale here as the Fullbore Mk10- and I think that was from a starting price of around £2k. I don't think that Tata would find a market in the UK nowadays. It would have a massive snobbery barrier to break through. I would probably buy one though, as an anti-style statement.

[Marty]

If it makes it here for under £2K you would have to beat me off with a s1tty stick as I would be straight down the dealers signing the finance deal (povvo spec one please) - this would make a super work mule for me and I would probably get enough mileage alowance back of the NHS to pay the monthly finance agreement.Only lack of warranty will probably push the price up (as it did with the CityRover) - the UK sale price will probbaly have to incorporate the cost of ongoing warranty repairs as I expect aveage UK milage would be larger than the average Indian milage (or then again maybe not).The Plastic and metal adhesive construction techniques intrigue me (as I have used glue and metal in my previous repairs of inner wings)I wonder how much it would cost to import one from India and how this would fare going through a SVA

[Electric Leyland]

I don't think any car has been such an instant Autoshite hit from birth. Except maybe the Renault Avantime. But I don't see what all the fuss is about? The French have been churning out flimsy motorcycle powered nearly-cars like this for decades, probably in equivalent price ranges.

 

[pogweasel]

I don't think that Tata would find a market in the UK nowadays. It would have a massive snobbery barrier to break through.

Totally agree. In the 'old days', if you were poor but wanted a newish car, you went to the Lada or FSO dealer and put £99 down. Now your average thicktard council type goes along to "Guaranteed Car Finance" and drives out in an ex-hire car Astra or Focus, no deposit, just 88% apr. If you have veins full of cholesterol, ugly kids and a sideboard full of "Franklin Mint" decorative artifacts you can appear to be just the same as everyone else, at least in what you drive.

[Electric Leyland]

That's absolutely right. Socioecomonics. There is a market in India for these ie families of 4 on a moped, who can only dream of owning an actual "car" until now.This was the only case here in post-WW2 Britain when the humble English family who wanted to upgrade ther Motorbike-sidecar to a real car (which they couldnt afford) made do with a motorcycle powered flimsymobile like a Bond, Frisky, AC, Reliant, that kind of thing. Certainly not now. I bet that family I see in Stevenage with a City Rover trade it in for one though. Can't wait!

[Spottedlaurel]

Baz, I thought you were going to say something really ridiculous like the R20 would be here soon…

 

Even at £2-3k I would never buy one, imagine what you could get instead?! (That 280C that’s just come up on OJC for example.) It’s compact nature wouldn’t really benefit me in these rural parts, and if the economy became that important to me I’d buy a Charade TD or something similar.

 

I admire the principle of it however.

 

Aren’t TATA being talked about as potential buyers of LR and Jaguar? Could be scope for a bit of badge-engineering there resulting in one of these becoming the new X-Type (be about as convincing a Jag as the Mondeo-based one was), and it’s bound to be more reliable than a Freelander.

[mk2_craig]

 

 

Wouldn't touch either with a forty foot pole.

[pogweasel]

I bet that family I see in Stevenage with a City Rover trade it in for one though. Can't wait!

There's a shitty rover lives in t'next street from me. On an "04" it's delightfully scruffy already.

[Mr Lobster]

Now your average thicktard council type goes along to "Guaranteed Car Finance" and drives out in an ex-hire car Astra or Focus, no deposit, just 88% apr. If you have veins full of cholesterol, ugly kids and a sideboard full of "Franklin Mint" decorative artifacts you can appear to be just the same as everyone else, at least in what you drive.

Couldn't have put that better myself!I shocks me how many people will finance themselves to the hilt to buy something without even worrying about what its actually costing, only worrying that it cost them £xx per month for the rest of forever.

[r.welfare]

Agreed wholeheartedly!This is a relatively new phenomenon but is here to stay - I remember 10 years ago (when I drove an elderly, beige Volvo 340 - hey, it was shit, but it was all paid for with my name on the logbook) and someone else who worked at the supermarket was crowing about the six-year old Escort (the piss-poor early Mk5) they'd paid 6 GRAND for, but it was fine as they were paying it off over 60 months thanks to the benevolent Reg Vardy Esquire. Nob.I've only had one car on finance - a two-year old Civic back in 2000 - and it was such a deathly-dull owning/driving experience I paid off the balloon in short order and replaced it with a 17-year old Audi 80 quattro. These days I'd much rather have a dependable motor, regardless of the registration plate thereon, and bung the difference in a savings account to buy a bigger house. SHITE RULES!

[pugtop]

I think i'd have a Nanno , just to fit in the boot of the Jag , just in case I ran out of petrol.... It'd be handy at rallies too , as 'pit bikes' are banned ... what would they say about a Nanno buzzing round the servcie area , after i'd pulled it out of the back of the Transit?I think they are definate classic status already , when was the last time you saw any Tata? The odd pick-up maybe 5 to 10 years back but SOOO rare now!

[Mash]

I'm all for the concept of economy cars for the masses but why do they always have to make them look ridiculous? Surely there's a way of designing a city car which makes it look funky? I mean, I'm not a big fan of the Mini but in it's original form it was dead right even I'll admit.No, I'd have to be on some pretty strong drugs to even be a passenger in that monstrosity, sorry peeps.There's a difference between being secure enough in yourself to drive a 20 year old Japmobile to shitting all over your self-respect!

[pogweasel]

Surely there's a way of designing a city car which makes it look funky?

 

Yeah, I get you. Down wid da kidz. Streetwise.

 

WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?

[Guest]

I like the fact it exists, but know it won't sell here due to the snobbery. Take the Perodua Nippa (and its replacement, the Kelisa), cheapest car in the UK and a cracking little machine. Never really heard anyone who has driven one slate it, but it seems to get a lot of stick from people who haven't, nearly always because it is "cheap and nasty", what would people think, etc.Snobbery is a cracking way of getting people to pay over the odds for stuff, not just cars. Why fill your trolley with "SCUM BEANS" with a very obvious and shame-causing tin design, when for a few more coins you can upgrade to "Ordinary Beans", or even "Premium Luxury Branded Gaffer-spec Beans"? For just many times the price of the poverty ones, you too can feel like one of the lucky few, if only whilst eating your breakfast. Hope that extra 40p made a considerable difference to something but the label design.I stopped trying to impress people many years ago and now I'm a better person as a result. I can feel smugly superior as I tuck into my dinner of 19p hot dogs and mysteriously-branded bread from Aldi, knowing I've "won".Actually, that just makes me a massive loser who eats crap hot dogs. Never mind.

[pogweasel]

Hey, I saw a Perodua the other day. It was a "KENARI" or something, most comedic thing I have seen for ages. That's probably why they are 'unloved'. This thing is similarly oddly-proportioned. But should be a third the price of a "NIPPA".

[Guest]

The Kenari is an object of wonder, did it have the very early 90s yellow stickers on the doors? It's a Perodua version of a later Daihatsu Move we didn't get (presumably as the first generation was a failure here).

 

But then we didn't get the absolutely LUDICROUS turbo versions:

 

Hope you like crosswinds.

[pogweasel]

Like a square, circle and triangle with some swooshes to indicate speed and excitement? Yes, that's the thing!!!!!It was piloted by a Sid and co-piloted by an obese, handbagging Doris, and at the time was being chastised down the road at 18mph by a frustrated looking man in a sprinter van.

[Guest]

I think Perodua get their stickers in bulk from one of those custom car sticker places you get on Bank Holiday markets.The 2008 Kenari is planned to have some tribal stripes on the front and Fido Dido on the side. Obviously the back will be reserved for a huge "BAD BOY" logo.

[Electric Leyland]

Massiiive Autoshite rrrrespec for anyone who's first with a genuine photo of a Tata Nano. Or for that matter a new Fiat 500.Renualt Avantime, Vel Satis, Citroen C6, Fiat Multipla. City Rover, NICE Mega City, NICE Mega Truck, G-Wiz, we are witnessing the dawning of a new tat era gentlemen.

[Marty]

Surely there's a way of designing a city car which makes it look funky?

WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?

Already people are slagging it off as they did with the lada and so on back in the 80's. Its cheap motoring for the masses. Who else will knock a cheap car out for those who want one? If lada set up again tomorrow with prices comparable to the 80's then i could well be tempted. But they haven't. So its the turn of the indians. What i really want to see is the chinese start importing their versiont of the maestro for 3 grand.I also eat asda scum brand beans. Happy? Yes actually i am.

[Betaphile]

The Nano will never come to the UK, or for that matter any Western country, for one very good reason - and it has nothing to do with snobbery or the like. As something to fill the brief which created it, it's great. It's a lot safer and more practical than a motorbike, which is about half the price. But at the risk of donning the uniform of Captain Obvious, driving in India isn't the same as driving in the West. For example, it doesn't matter in India that the car's wheel bearings only cope with sustained use at a maximum of 45mph, because the quality of the roads (and the traffic mix - cows and elephants mix with bikes, tenuously-loaded trucks and people) is dodgy enough to discourage pedal-to-the-metal antics. But it does in the West, which would treat it as a disposable car. Frankly, I'm not sure that that's a good thing.

[pugtop]

Well if I could pick one up , it'd come in handy as a mobile jerrycan , for the Jag! If they can get the emmisions down to Euro 4 levels , i'm sure someone will import them.....

[michiel]

Massiiive Autoshite rrrrespec for anyone who's first with a genuine photo of a new Fiat 500.

From my spotted thread a while ago...

 

[outlaw118]

With rewference to earlier comments; were'nt Renault supposed to be importing an "economy" car - family sized made in Poland or somewhere - I don't think it was a Dacia although I could be mistaken? Price about £3500, looking like the R19. Can anyone else remember, or did I just make that up?

[Volksy]

Yes Renault were, i think, planning on bringing the Dacia Logan to these shores for around £5-7k. But I would presume this will only be when the existing Clio Campus goes out of production.

[r.welfare]

I'm not sure if the Logan has been engineered for RHD. I would be surprised if Renault UK do bring it in, I can see it taking a lot of sales from the Clio and Megane, rather than attracting 'conquest' buyers if they badge it as a Renner and put it in the same showrooms. I would guess the costs of setting up a separate dealer network for Dacia would be pretty high for the projected volumes, too - I mean, would it be a smash hit, or would the snobbery already noted mean that sales would be at the Daihatsu/Perodua kind of level?