Tata Nano Review - is it worth the Hype?

India is predominantly a market of small cars and a big chunk of the choice of vehicles available is concentrated on the affordable end of the spectrum.

Yet, the prospect of safe personal mobility is a dream for most Indian families. The Nano is the first car that has the potential to fulfil this aspiration and truly be a people’s car in the Indian context and so, ‘Now you can’.

Like people’s cars of the past, the Nano’s too is a radical new design that has you riveted. Ultra-compact, tall and with free-flowing lines, it looks like a wide-eyed toddler eager to please, with a big smile plastered on its face.

After waiting for over a year, we finally had the opportunity to get behind the wheels of the Nano right after its commercial launch. So, what was it like and how will it perform on real tarmac? Read on to find out.

Much has already been written about the Nano’s vital statistics in terms of interior space compared to its nearest rival – the Maruti 800. But, it still does take you by surprise when you get to sit inside the Nano and personally get a feel of the space that has been leveraged out of a tall, relatively narrow outer shell.

There is considerable headroom and the fact that there is no engine under bonnet in the front helps the Nano offer deep foot wells and so lots of legroom for front passengers. At 1,652mm, the Nano is about 6 cms taller than the Hyundai Santro Xing, the tall-boy of small cars and it is also wider than both the small cars.

With the engine being positioned at the rear and just above the rear axle, the extremely stubby, short bonnet only houses the spare wheel and tyre, the air-conditioner condenser, air-conditioner’s air intake (in the LX and CX variants), the fuel filling point, and the tanks for the windscreen washer fluid and the brake fluid. There isn’t anymore space there and so no other storage option has been provided.

The Nano is a two-box car and is not a hatchback in the conventional sense of the term, since there is no hatch door to open out at the rear. In fact, though the rear of the Nano looks like it has an integrated hatch door, there are actually two parts – the rear glass and the rectangular, curved metal panel below it, both of which are fixed and bolted on. Access to the rear luggage storage area of 130 litres is via the back seat. Fold down the rear seat and the parcel tray fixed to it and you can reach the luggage area. It is pretty simple to do, but is likely to be one of the points that will be most criticised. The process has to be repeated and another floor panel fixed with the help of six wing nuts have to be removed to gain access to the engine of the Nano.

So, for a regular top-up service or even simple diagnostics, the rear engine bay can be reached only this way. But, the rather awkward process has to be tolerated, since the Nano’s focus on low costs means many of these features that are taken for granted in other hatchbacks cannot be carried forward in the One-lakh car.

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