The story of the Nano started with Ratan Tata watching your average Indian family – father, mother, two kids – riding thru the rain. Thus began the genesis of the one-lakh-rupee car, India’s ‘People’s’ Car and it was scorned to dust by the world, our own countrymen (and women!). A good motorcycle today costs a lakh, an autorickshaw costs almost two lakh rupees and India’s cheapest car which is as no-frills as you can get, costs over two lakh rupees…so everybody expected a cheap, compromised, utilitarian four-wheeler. But this is an against-all-odds story and Ratan Tata and his team of motivated and talented engineers have produced a winner – an astonishingly normal car that experts can recommend to anyone…Overdrive (April ’09) gives you added insight….
Styling
Overdrive (April ’09) guarantees that when you first see a Nano on the road you will smile. It melts your heart. It’s like the brat with the mischievous glint in her eye, you know you should slap her into shape but all you can do is hug her harder. You will want to give the Nano a big bear hug first thing in the morning…
Like all cars born of functionality and shallow wallets, the Nano is inherently right. It has a simplicity to the design in which lies its ultimate appeal. No matter what your financial ability you will love it. This will become the ultimate classless vehicle; something that will appeal to rich, middle class and poor folk alike.
For a cheap car there are very many hints at sportiness notably in the side air-intake (like Porsche and Ferrari), flared wheel arches, rear roof spoiler and central exhaust. The shrap crease on the nose and vertical tail lamps link back to the rest of Tata Motor’s family. All Tata cars are also famed for their interior space and to achieve that the Nano is tall and upright though those proportions are well masked by the drooping roof, egg-shaped silhouette, forward visual bias and the wheels at the extremities.
Of course having the engine at the rear means there’s practically nothing at the nose allowing the driver and windshield to be pushed right up front creating a perfect mono volume shape.
Interiors
The space inside the Nano is huge! The Nano measures 3.1 meters in length, is 1.6 meters wide and 1.65 meters tall. The wheelbase is 2230mm and track widths are 1325mm at the front and 1315mm at the rear. Tata claims that the Nano is eight per cent smaller than the smallest car in India (Maruti 800 obviously) but within these constraints they’ve managed to liberate 21 per cent more interior volume and astonishingly for such a small car, four adults can fit in comfortably (tall drivers and passengers included). The seats themselves are designed to be comfortable without eating too much into interior space and both the front seats slide and recline allowing very tall drivers to fit in behind the wheel. The driving position is comfortable and well thought out, ergonomically everything is where it would be in a car and visibility is of course very good with only the centre stack hump obstructing the left hand view slightly.
There are three variants of the Nano – standard, CX and LX – the main differences being the trim levels. The standard is bog standard – rexine seats, no air-con and no frills. The LX gets air-conditioning, power front windows (rear remains wind-down), central locking, front and rear fog lamps, full fabric seats and rexine/fabric door inserts. Also on the LX, the rear parcel tray is bolted to the seat back and the whole set-up tumbles to liberate 80 litres of boot space – good enough only for two or a maximum of three shopping bags. With the seats folded storage volume rises to 500 litres. The engine is accessed after tumbling the rear seats because the rear hatch deosn’t open, the battery is under the driver’s seat and the spare wheel is in the nose along with the fuel filler cap.
As with all Tata cars you walk in and out of the car – ingress-egress is easier than even in the Indica and with the high-set seats the H-point is naturally higher and that means you can spend long hours in the back and not suffer aches and pains.
Another surprising aspect is quality of the interiors which are unexpectedly good. The plastics are cheap but crucially not nasty while the two-tone grey on the dash and the colour of the seat fabrics make the cabin look and feel light and airy. In such a small car the centrally mounted speedo actually breaks the monotony of the design and giving the speedo company is a digital fuel gauge, odometer and a bunch of warning lights, one of which is a cute little outline of the Nano with a spanner running across it; the cutest warning lamp in the world.
The central console is flanked by a scooped out dash which can hold odds and ends and everything and has rounded edges to make it safer in a crash. There is no glove box but there are two cup holders and small map pockets in the doors.
The doors are ultra light (and of course feel flimsy) and have an integrated armrest, door pull and coin holder. The three-spoke steering wheel is unique to the Nano (standard versions get a two-spoke wheel) and is trimmed in soft touch plastics.
Safety
A key factor of the Nano and a key criticism has been safety and Tata engineers are keen to stress that she meets all current regulatory requirements in India including full frontal crash, head impact on steering wheel, body block impact on steering and seat belt anchorage strength. There are crumple zones in the front, waist reinforcement in the doors and the Nano has also been subjected to roof crush tests.
The base of the Nano is a unique hybrid monocoque construction in which two cross members are welded into the monocoque and this robust understructure takes most of the road loads. It allows the super structure to use thinner sheet metal and thus be lighter. Being rear-engined, the Nano doesn’t need a central transmission tunnel but it is there to add rigidity while also allowing for the brake, fuel and air-con lines to pass through. The roof is ribbed to increase strength and fixed rear glass and hatch also adds rigidity to the structure.
Engine & Transmission
The engine is a brand new development – a 624cc all-aluminum parallel twin petrol engine that makes 35S of power at 5250rpm and max torque of 48Nm between 2500 and 4000rpm. It has all-square cylinder dimensions of 73.5mm, runs a 9.7:1 compression ratio and there are two valves per cylinder actuated by a single camshaft. A special low-cost ECU developed by Bosch handles fuel injection duties and the engine meets BS III emission norms while tuning is underway to meet Bs IV norms (equivalent to Euro III). The engine is unique in that it uses a single balancer shaft to cut vibrations; the first time such a set-up has been used in a passenger car.
The engine is mounted on a sub-frame that allows quick and easy assembly of the engine, transmission, exhaust, cooling system and suspension onto it and then to the body. The corollary is also true – six bolts need to be undone to slide the sub frame out from under the body to work on the engine.
On the move, NVH levels are never bothersome and very little engine vibrations enter the cabin. The engine is limited to 5600rpm but revs extremely well. The crucial aspect is that power doesn’t tail off after peak in the torque curve is hit and thee engine revs cleanly and strongly till it’s redline.
The transversely mounted gearbox is surprisingly free of vibrations. It is short in throw, precise and its slick action makes easy work of keeping the engine on boil. The four-speed cable actuated manual ‘box can handle up to 50Nm of torque and is mated to a single dry plate clutch.
The engine has 10,000km service intervals like any normal passenger car engine and the warranty is 18 months or 24,000km whichever is earlier.
Performance
Best not to expect much from 35PS, but to its advantage the Nano only weighs 600kg and that gives it a respectable power-to-weight ratio. Initial acceleration is sprightly, it gets going rather smartly and 60kmph comes in a respectable 9.8 seconds. This makes her great fun to drive in the city and worked hard she can keep pace with fast moving city traffic. However as speeds rise the engine has to work harder and to hit 100kmph she needs almost a kilometer and 35.1 seconds. There’s no tacho but when you hit top speed (105kmph) the limiter cuts in and the engine check lamp and temperature guage start to blink.
Torque is not a strong point of the engine and in fourth gear when faced with an incline the car loses steam and requires downshifting to keep going. Also because it’s so light, every extra passenger, every extra shopping bag has an adverse impact on performance.
Emissions are claimed to be 12 percent lower than any motorbike in the country and CO2 emissions are less than 110g/km. fuel efficiency is also a strong point with a claimed and ARAI certified fuel consumption of 23.6kmpl.
What could be a bit of a bother is braking; 180mm drums are used front and rear and the deluxe versions get a vacuum booster. Surprisingly the brakes were more progressive on the standard version, on the other cars it was very difficult to brake smoothly and progressively – most of the time it was either full braking or no braking.
Ride and Handling
Whether by design or accident, the Nano is extremely good fun to drive and it is rear-wheel drive, what all enthusiast swear by. Drifting a Nano might be the silliest thing in the world to do but it showcases how neutral, balanced, predictable and forgiving she is. The car does lok disproportionately tall but hard as OverDrive (April ’09) tried there is no danger of toppling over.
To large part it is down to differential tyre sizes; the fronts are 135-section 12-inchers, while the rears are 155-section (and lower profile, 65 compared to 70) 12-inchers. The tyre sip points are calibrated so that the front tyres slip before the rears and so at the limit it will under steer predictably and will only over steer if deliberately provoked into it. The spare is a 135/70 and all five tyres are tubeless MRFs bolted on by just three studs to save on cost.
The rack and pinion steering is non-collapsible and non-assisted but with little to no weight up front you never feel the need for power steering except at parking speeds. Steering is direct and quick in response, almost like a go-kart and that makes it massive fun to drive in the city. The Nano dimensions are so small that it will fit into impossibly sized gaps in traffic and in the city no car can keep up with the Nano assures OverDrive (April ’09).
The Nano rides on conventional MacPherson struts up front while a semi-trailing arm is used at the rear. It of course has a very short wheelbase and that has its own limitations on ride. On the road, it tends to bounce around a bit, like it is over-sprung, but the crucial thing is that everything is progressive. There are no sharp spine jangling jolts transmitted to the cabin and the robust underpinnings and 180mm of ground clearance means rough roads can be tackled with ease.
Over roads that will have an 800 running on its bump stops and murdering passengers’ backs, the Nano will be able to motor through at decent speeds and that will be a crucial factor working to its advantage in rural and semi-urban India.
Overall
It shows in the fact that this is no cut-price embarrassment of a car, this is a car as we know it but at a price we never thought possible. It looks lovable, it is huge fun to drive and can seat four in comfort. Crucially there are no external signs of cost-cutting and that’s something that will make the Nano appeal to everybody – rich or poor, city slicker or rural farmer.
OverDrive’s recommendation? Jump on the line and book one today – the wait for the Nano has been well worth it!
