Tata brought in the Safari in India which was the first true-blue SUV in India and it instantly formed a cult following with loyalists buying the Safari left right top and bottom.
They brought in the Indica way back in 1998 but after that, they never really managed to bring in a head turning product to the market. Tata Nano was believed to be an engineering wonder but once it came on the roads, it had a lot of technical flaws which made this wonder a dud seller.
Tata motors was rumored to be developing a Mini Aria but the latest we hear is that there is no Mini Aria! However, now Tata has confirmed something which might be of immense interest to everyone.
Coming right from the horse’s mouth, Tata is developing a Mini or a Compact SUV for the Indian market. Yes, that’s true. Tata’s new R&D boss, Tim Leverton has confirmed that they are developing a Compact SUV which will be based on their X1 platform which currently underpins the Manza and the Vista.
Autocar India Editor Hormazd Sorabjee had also confirmed this in the scoop section of Autocar magazine about Tata developing a mini SUV which shall rival the likes of the Ford EcoSport and the Mahindra Quanto.
Tata Motors will use a monocoque design instead of the body-on-ladder design, which is expected to give the car a better ride quality and stability. Tata Motors plans to invest an amount close to a billion dollars in product development over the next five years and we believe that a major chunk of that will go into development of passenger vehicles, a market where they’ve been struggling for quite a while in India.
Tata motors has been trying quite hard to get their products moving but the minor refreshes have not been able to get them back on the right track.
Compact SUV segment and the Compact Sedan segment are two most lucrative segments in the Indian market as of now with almost all the car makers trying to garner a share of these segments. As far as Tata is concerned, they’ve got the money, the R&D, but the brand’s aspirational value has been denting the sales of its products.
Renault Duster turned the fortunes of Renault in India, Ford EcoSport is expected to do the same for Ford in India, the Mahindra Quanto has been quite a success too and the upcoming Tata’s Mini SUV is expected to break the debacles the company’s image has been in.
They brought the first True SUV to us, and now even though there have been a slew of other SUVs present in India, it is still expected that Tata will deliver another segment leader in the coming years. How would you envision Tata’s new potential break through?
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Source: Reuters
Richie Rich
