I’m not a misanthrope. I like people, and I tend to think that, for most people, the better you know them, the harder it is to dislike them. I mean, there’s exceptions, sure, but that’s mostly been my experience. That doesn’t mean there aren’t certain human traits that drive me nuts, because there absolutely are, and I blame one of those traits on why the Tata Nano failed. Human have this weird seemingly constant need to convey status, even when the process or attempt to do that actually makes their lives worse. This is why we get into situations where people who desperately needed a dirt-cheap but usable car refused to buy one because nobody wants to look like someone who needs a dirt-cheap but usable car.
The Tata Nano is one of the cars I admire most. When it launched in 2008, it cost the equivalent of $2500 US dollars. In today’s money, that’s about $3776 today, which is still absolutely shockingly cheap for a car today. A Ford Model T’s price about a century before the Nano would come to $21,000 today. A 1973 Volkswagen Beetle like the one I have would have cost about $1800 to $2000 new, which comes to about $14,600 today. Just take a moment to think how incredible that is!
I firmly believe the Tata Nano is a greater engineering triumph than the Bugatti Veyron or Chiron or whatever. Of course you can create a technological marvel when you don’t have to worry about money. But when you’re trying to design a usable car for the price of a surprising number of designer handbags, that’s where things get tough, and Tata’s engineers pulled it off. And I think the resulting car was genuinely great! I said just that when I reviewed it back in 2018, when I’m pretty sure I was also the first person to drive a Nano to a Waffle House:
There were other journalists who got to drive this lone Nano in America, which was owned by Jeff Lane, of the fantastic Lane Motor Museum, and they often had very different opinions, but I blame that on them being candy-asses.
But this post isn’t a Tata Nano retrospective; I thought about the Nano because we have a story coming up later today about a car that reminded me of the Nano, and when I started thinking about the Nano I remembered that there was once a brief, glorious moment, somewhere around 2010-2012, when there was a real expectation that Tata would bring the Nano to America.
A bunch of outlets wrote about this, and I feel like I recall being excited about the possibility of it at the time. Most of the speculation came because Ratan Tata himself said they were planning on an up-rated Nano with airbags and more power (I guess spoiled Americans think 37 horsepower isn’t enough? Everyone thinks they’re a sultan.) and the hope was to sell it for under $10,000 around 2015, which would have been incredible.
Of course, this did not happen. And when I look back at these headlines suggesting it would happen, it sort of saddens me, because based on how the American car market looks today, the idea of a truly inexpensive car being available for sale feels like a fever dream, a goal as impossible as me deciding I am going to win the Boston Marathon when it happens in a bit over a month from now. Maybe the Nano thing would have less vomiting, but it’s equally improbable.
And then there’s the indisputable fact that the Nano failed in its home market of India because it was simply too cheap for people. People who were using motorbikes for their whole family felt they didn’t want to be seen in the World’s Cheapest Car. There’s something so profoundly sad about this fact, I always felt, like it’s a reminder that there’s something deeply wrong with us.
Why are we like this? A genuinely cheap car would be so helpful to so many people! And they’re cool! I mean, I think they’re cool. And I’m sure some other people do, too. But that’s not enough to push back against the kneejerk equating of expensive with desirable, and I can’t think of any human cultural urge that has bitten us in the ass with its jewel-encrusted, gold-plated teeth more than that.
I could be wrong, but I don’t recall new beetles being affordable at all in the 70s.
I remember shock at the Are You Kidding Me? pricing. Dealer acted like they were selling Porsches.
More like competitive with luxury fords than other European cars.
I only knew three people even having one then, and one was a German spec brought back by a relative.
So, in 2012, there was speculation you could get a Nano for ~$10K by 2015.
In 2017, I bought a new Ford Fiesta (SE, not even the base model) for $12,997 out the door. So much more car than a Nano for not much more money (than speculated).
Good, cheap, small cars did exist, and we did buy them! I still have mine! It’s been the cute and personable valiant steed that I bought it to be.
2008 -2010 was such a weird time I can forgive people for thinking they would get some kind of nano. After all you had elios promising a us built 3 wheel thing for $6800. You had the zap and later the Snyder imported 3 wheeler. You had wheelgo and coda. If they were bringing in weird imported Chinese cars at a time then Chinese car industry was not very good at all. At around the same time Mahindra was taking over the smaller tractor segment. They also brought in their roxor that could be had for like $8k to $10k. All the American car companies bankrupt begging Congress for money after arriving on their private jets. Having a cheap car from India didn’t sound all that far fetched. Granted the $2500 one would have never happened the upgraded one seemed like a possibility. Marketing something as cheap is always the issue. I’m not sure they should even say value. Just show the car doing something. Let people look it up and find out what the thing costs. Definitely don’t put up billboards announcing how cheap the thing is in the cities they are driving around.
You can make a cheap car but by God, don’t go screaming from the rooftops about it being the cheapest. Anyone with a modicum of marketing knowledge could tell you that was a bad idea.
Calling people candyasses for being scared to drive it is very funny though. Never change Torch (obviously not a worry, if you haven’t changed by now I think we’re locked in).
But didn’t you hear? We’re getting Kei cars in the US now. It’s totally gonna happen, someone really important said so, and he’s definitely not the kind of person to get distracted by something else 2 weeks later and never even think about it again while the people actually responsible for following through on it deliberately never bring it up because it’s completely impractical and nonsensical.
Boy howdy I can’t wait to buy me a brand new Kei car right off the dealer lot in the proud and mighty US of A!
This was also the promise of the Elio. Anybody else remember that? The perpetually “just 6 months away” 3-wheeled vehicle that was supposed to sell for like $5k? I got to sit in their prototype at a local event they were having once, and it sort of felt like what I imagine the inside of a WWII fighter plane was like, only a bit more roomy (you’d sit tandem: driver up front, passenger behind). I was really looking forward to that! Not enough that I was dumb and put a deposit down like so many people did, but it looked like it’d be a fairly fun way to get around for not too much money!
I also test drove a Smart ForTwo once. The horrible automatic transmission would stutter and jerk more than it would if it were the manual… and I haven’t driven a manual in almost 30 years!
I, too, sat in an Elio prototype when their promotional tour came through town but I got the impression that they didn’t entirely appreciate the HMV Freeway t-shirt I was wearing.
Felt like it’d be fun to drive though, no? I’m a pretty big guy (6’1″, 300 lbs.). I was pleasantly surprised at the amount of room I had!
It was substantially roomier than my HMV Freeway is and I have to assume far more comfortable to drive. I don’t know whether it would be more fun to drive, though.
Every time I see “Nano” I hear it spoken in DankPods’ voice. nah – no
The smallest car my family owned was a Geo Tracker. My dad sold it in the late ’90s to a coworker who was in desperate need of transportation after a nasty divorce. We saw her around town quite a bit; she drove it for many years. It’s a shame there aren’t more cars like that available now.
The problem is/was that for the same money you could have a used car that was objectively better in every way except that it wasn’t new. The reason supercheap new cars don’t work anymore is because cars are now reliable enough for used vehicles to be the better choice for everyone except the tiny demographic of “people on a tight budget who are too snobby to buy a used car but don’t care about being seen in a cheap one”
I’m not as certain this is true in Tata’s home market. In Indian mega cities, cars get used up pretty quickly. Having a cheap new car with a warranty would be appealing there, and a Nano would do the job that’s needed there. I’ve seen a few Nanos on the street in Bangalore and always take a moment to appreciate them. I also always enjoy the Mahindras that look like four door Jeeps with independent front suspension and think how much nicer that would be for American suburban Jeep drivers.
I saw a truck today with the spare on the rear gate today. Might have been a jeep.
Only this one had no tire, just the clean rim attached to the body!
Not that I object, but I’d prefer us to take some baby steps and allow subcompacts of the Yaris/Fit/2/Fiesta size back into the country. Hell, even something the size of a 90’s Civic would be an improvement.
Honestly, I’ve been hoping that someone like Ford or GM would considering bringing back the captive import concept, say take a Suzuki Swift and rebadge the thing as a Fiesta or whatever. But the tariff bullshit has all but killed that.
There is nothing at all stopping the making or importing of cars like the Yaris/Fit/2/Fiesta other than the minor fact that people simply won’t pay enough for them to make them profitable. They don’t cost a penny less to produce than cars a size or two bigger (and probably actually cost MORE due to lower economies of scale and the need to use more expensive materials to get the same crash safety and due to packaging), and “perceived value” is a very real thing.
What kept them alive for YEARS in the US was CAFE fuel efficiency standards. It made sense to sell them at a loss to offset the worse fuel economy of the profitable cars. Once that went away, so did all the dirt cheap small cars.
This is why more than likely you would need a new company or division to do this, unless we modify crash standards to end the vehicle safety arms race that will inevitably have us all driving massive vehicles by the end.
If a small car or two comes back at genuinely affordable prices, there’s probably two reasons:
1) The economy crashes and a major manufacturer realizes the only way to stay afloat is to chase volume through a people’s car, until things recover and they can shift back to their beloved money-printing crossovers.
2) A separate entity comes in to shake things up with a smash-hit sort of basic design where the marketing breaks through. As of right now, no car company is interested in building small cheap cars at volume, because selling those might cannibalize sales of their larger and more expensive cars. Dealers refuse to stock them and sell them too. You probably need a 80’s/90’s Hyundai-like sort of player to come in and undercut. Unfortunately I’m not seeing who is doing that (at least in the US, obviously China is doing this basically everywhere else).
Someone could make small cars cheaper. But it would have to be the focus of the business.
It’s not just standards, it’s expectations. And the reality is that cars are now good enough that used cars are simply not a penalty. So what’s the point of so stripped out and cheap in modern first world countries? Nobody NEEDS a brand-new car. They are just a “nice to have” and give you the good feels.
I start by saying that yeah, in many cases used cars are the right choice for people who can’t afford a nice, new car. But I’ve also been on here to say that because of the lack of cheap new cars, we’re getting to a point where the used stock is dwindling, prices are artificially high, and used car value isn’t what it used to be.
The thing that the commentariat seems to dramatically undervalue is risk. When you’re cash poor, the worst thing that can happen to you is a massive failure of your transportation pod. For people down on their luck, sometimes it makes way more sense to finance something cheap and new, than to finance something used and potentially experience the double whammy of a car payment combined with powertrain failure. As much as everyone here claims that ever car out there is zooming to 250k reliably, after reports of all sorts of expensive CVT failures, engine failures, and other maladies across nearly all brands, this just isn’t true.
I tend to buy used cars because I can handle the risk, if something goes horribly wrong it’ll kneecap me pretty bad, but it won’t send my life into a death spiral. For some people (a whole freaking lot of people really) they’d be better off buying a small, efficient, cost controlled new car, covered by a warranty over the life of the loan. I did this when I was younger (Suzuki SX4) and it worked out great. Could I have chewed up and spat out various used cars over that duration? Sure. Would that option have been cheaper? Only if I was lucky.
Oh, new cars have largely jumped the shark from the bottom to the top of the market for various good and bad reasons. Ever-improving efficiency and safety are laudable goals, but I think we are WELL past the point of diminishing returns, especially as performance has gone stupid. Cars would be SO much more efficient if we could live with the performance expectations of the 90s, for example. I would trust MANY well-kept used cars from a decade ago over MANY new cars of today.
There is a lot to be said for “car as a utility bill”. Cheap, leased, get a new one every three years. Worked great for a friend who was working full time AND in school full time for a long time. She leased a succession of Jettas for ~$250/mo, no money down. She never even had to buy tires. But it only works for relatively cheap cars when money is cheap, so the lease is cheap. Otherwise, fixing what you have is inevitably cheaper for a hell of a long time. The biggest cost of ownership of a new car is not fuel or repairs, it is *depreciation*, even if you never write a check for that (at least until you replace the thing). For nicer cars serial leasing is hilariously expensive.
Cheap serial leasing has it’s place for sure.
And I think if I lived somewhere else, the well-known reliable cars of the 00’s and some of the 10’s would be my first recommendation for people, if they weren’t all rotting out. Hell, based on Shitbox Showdown, if I lived in Oregon, I wouldn’t drive anything from the last 20 years.
So that also informs my opinion of these things. A decent mechanical example of a 3-10 year old car here has still seen a bunch of winters.
Being from Maine, I feel you. I simply stopped buying cars from north of the Mason-Dixon line long ago. Even if I didn’t fly for effectively free, buying from the rust-free places is far cheaper in the long run. Though it is amazing what the little bit of Maine winters my Disco I has seen has done to a San Diego truck that was *shiny* underneath when I bought it. No rot, but surface rust all over the place.
Now, living mainly in FL, the issue is sun damage. My Florida native Mercedes is lovely underneath, but the topsides have definitely suffered plenty from the sun. The Pacific Northwest seems like the ideal compromise, but is annoyingly distant.
In 2015, you could get a new Nissan Micra in Canada for $10,000 or $7300 USD.
It was a real car, with a manual, and a strong 4 cylinder engine, 4 seats, nice proportions, and safety standards.
It was significantly better than the Mirage, for 40-50% less money.
It had it’s own spec racing series, where you would go wheel to wheel with Patrick Dempsey.
I feel like they were pretty successful, as I still see them around often.
The Nano at the same price point would have been an embarrassing joke.
You are making me wish I was dating a Canadian instead of a Texan back then.
Watching a Micra spec series sounds like fun. (The world really needs more spec series racing.)
I’d love to build a street version of the spec car. I always wondered about a Sentra Spec V swap as well, as donors are almost free. Close to 200hp, 6 speed, LSD. It would be a fun package.
Yeah, it truly was remarkably cheap! I believe it was something like $9998 for the Micra, and $9995 for the Chevy Spark. Although the Spark was sold in the States, I don’t think it was nearly that cheap once exchange was factored in
I recall some dealers around that time offering the spark for about $8500. At one point they were $7800. But I think that was maybe 2013 or 14? Probably still not as cheap as exchange rate. The mirage I think was more like $8700. But often sitting very close to $10k. I can remember them advertising versas around that time for $7800. Focus a year or two earlier for $8500. Though possibly still into 2015.
New Focus for $8500? I’d have to see that to believe it.
When the Micra was new, the Focus was at least $20-$25k in Canada.
Sticker was probably around $14k. But they would advertise them and sell them for $8500. A little before that you could get a xl f150 for about $14k too. Sticker on that probably around $25k maybe more I don’t recall. Stickers are just nonsense to me.
Wow. Those are like sale prices in Canada in the early 90s.
There are a couple still kicking in my hood. They’re super cute. We also have two Scion iQs nearby.
It would be fascinating to know how much Nissan lost on every one of those Micras sold. BUT – often it makes sense to lose money here to make money there to a point – hence the old saying about making it up in volume. That point seems to be long past though.
I don’t believe they took losses on these. They built them in Mexico, on an old platform with lots of parts bin stuff. Base models were close to break-even, and higher trims were profitable.
It was similar to what VW did with the City Golf and City Jetta years earlier.
It was a Mexican car for a Mexican price, basically a win for everyone.
Maybe they did, maybe they didn’t – they certainly didn’t make MUCH on them even if the bean counters could cook the books to make them not actually lose money.
These days you can’t keep old platforms going like that anymore due to ever tightening emissions, efficiency, and safety requirements and expectations.
I think they were really just trying to get new buyers in the door so they could eventually step up to more expensive vehicles. Any profit made was really a bonus.
Sure, there was some of that. But the fact they didn’t make money on them is the reason those cars are all going away. No reason to do it anymore, and with ever-tightening regs, they can’t just keep cranking out the same old dreck anyway.
Automakers are always lobbying government so they can continue selling old dreck, as it’s more profitable than investing billions in newer technologies.
Until Trump, wasn’t really working in the US – and it SURE wasn’t working in the EU. But once Trump is gone, I fully expect the pendulum to swing back the other way.
But the Congresscritters will certainly take their money regardless.
And ultimately, nobody wants to lose money on anything anymore. The reasons that it made sense to do so have all gone away. And so have the shitty cheap cars.
The Mirage is the holdout I guess. Shitty and cheap yes, but overpriced for what it is.
Hasn’t it also been killed off now? If not, well, Mitsubishi hasn’t got much of anything going on, so why not?
Ludicrously overpriced, IMHO. Free would be too much for me, but I admit to being very much an automotive snob.
It may have been killed off, I’m just too lazy to check. I’m generally a pretty cheap person, so a great value like the Micra is definitely appealing to me. The Mirage was definitely a step backward for cheap small cars.
I’ll admit that the Micra is a tiny car done pretty well. And it gave it’s platform to the delightful retro series of cars that Nissan made. I’d really love to have a Pao to run around to the shops in.
The Mirage is just dire. No cheerful, just cheap.
Well, let’s not forget there was another reason the Nano failed to catch fire…
Tata’s Nano: Fire!
I wish someone would just do it. Put out a super basic <10,000 brand new car that could last 10+ years. I feel like it would be the solution for parents looking for a car for their teen or college student.
That’s what used Priuses are for.
Or used Corollas, or used Civics, or used Rios, or all sorts of used and disposable things. Kids are HARD on cars. Though having been a 17yo with a newly minted license, I agree on making sure whatever it is has very limited performance potential. Any kid of mine would be starting out in a diesel Volvo 240 with an automatic, LOL.
In postwar Europe, new cars were expensive when available, and most used cars had been blown to smithereens, having any car was a status symbol. Even if it was a Beetle, or a 2CV, or any of the micro/bubble cars. But that was a rare set of circumstances which the world has thankfully not seen since.
I can’t tell if this was intended as satire or not…
The thing that always sticks with me is that the climate was unusually dry in the early postwar years, making scooters all the more practical, beyond the fuel/material shortages, damaged roads and limited manufacturing. The microcars came along just in time for the climate to revert to mean.
The first world anyway.
I can believe that this was expected to be a thing. If those misleading AI-generated BS ads at the bottom of many websites (thank you, ad blockers!) are any indication – coupled with folks’ reaction to them – we’ll be seeing a Pontiac Cutlass 442 pickup by Mansory in the local Mercury-Saab showrooms any day now, with over 1K miles of range from an onboard air-to-water free-energy machine.
Really, though, I see a decent amount of Mirage, base Versa, Yaris, Focus SFE, etc., models out there, so folks are willing to acquire relatively basic transportation. It just has to be priced correctly and not be too much of a sacrificial penalty box. Would the Nano have done well here? Probably not, seeing how relatively recent forays by smart, Fiat, and Daewoo have come and gone.
Having spent some time in an older Versa and had a rental spec Focus for a road trip I’m not sure you’re giving them enough credit lol. And I say this as someone who once (foolishly) bought a new 2007 Hyundai accent with steel wheels and wind-up windows for only $12K so I agree to the point that there is a market for reliable basic transport. That being said the Nano by all accounts make all the above cars look downright luxurious.
To your point about the Smart (which I also have seat time in thanks to the defunct Car2Go), I can’t help but think part of the problem with trying to sell city cars in the USA is most of our large cities require at least an occasional jaunt on the interstate which frankly sounds terrifying in something like the Nano, trying to merge with all 37 hamster power screaming at redline while semis and bro-dozers bear down on you.
Smarts were incredibly compromised, single-purpose cars. They are superb at what they do IF you need that single capability, but they don’t really do anything else particularly well. As I have said here before, I have a coworker who with his wife own a pair of For2s because they let them park two cars in a single car, urban Boston driveway. Street parking in Boston is a full-contact sport. But unless you NEED that, literally anything else is a better choice unless you are a weirdo who just loves the things like our beloved Mercedes. And I mean weirdo in the best way possible – I certainly am one when it comes to cars too. 🙂
There isn’t ENOUGH market for things like that Hyundai anymore to make it profitable in the US. They still make the cheapest car in the country, the Venue, and it isn’t exactly flying off the dealer lots. The way people on here go on, you’d think they could sell them in the 300K a year quantities that Civics and Corollas used to sell in. They haven’t managed to sell 30K of them in a year yet. But they have sold 110K+ Palisades the past couple years at 2-2.5X the price. And probably 5X the profit margin… And they have a HELL of a lot more competition for Palisades than they do Venues at their respective price points.
As has been said, it’s a K-shaped economy today.
Yeh exactly. Interesting forgot about the Venue, looking it up that really is like the spiritual successor to my accent hatch in many ways, appears to have power windows though lol. If I was being picky it’s a bit dumpy to my eye but it’s hardly like its basically non-existent competitors look any better.
Definitely see your point though, if there was hyper pent up demand for budget friendly new cars you’d think the Venue would be flying off dealer lots especially in light of how many other budget cars have been killed off in the last 5-10 years. I don’t know are people just living way beyond their means? Folks just have to keep up with the Jones in their SUV?
Most people who buy new cars have PLENTY of money. This is why the average price is now over $50K. The people who are stretching and living on raman noodles are a tiny percentage of the market – reality is the poors buy used.
Smarts and Fiats were never intended to be cheap cars, rather stylish city cars.
Daewoos were cheap because they were garbage, same as Yugos and early Hyundai/KIA products. The later have mostly caught up with the rest, and IIRC GM bought Daewoo – aren’t they basically who built the Spark?
Yeah, gm has been rebadging daewoos for a while. From the various Suzukis as part of their joint-venture with them, to a mass of gm-branded models like the spark you mention, plus the sonic, trax, encore, encore gx, aveo, and maybe a few more I’m forgetting.
Yes, I agree that smarts and Fiats were meant as stylish city cars. However, Fiat was actually priced competitively for what it was for the five 500 variants we got (regular, Abarth, L, X, EV), and the 124 Spider (“Fiata”) was also reasonably priced as a slightly-upmarket Miata, but not to Z4/Z5 or SLK money, comparatively. The smart had quite a premium that it could never quite justify here; the fortwo was priced where a forfour would have been had it been imported here.
Bookmarking this for 2038 when Cristian Gnaticov is arrested for horsewhipping Jason at an auto show.
You beat me to the punch (pun intended)
I just bought my family round trip tickets that cost more than the hypothetical cost of the Nano, and I guarantee the Nano would’ve been more spacious and comfortable seating. Sure, it can’t reach 650mph, but I would at least get to keep it!
This is the exact reason why we’re forced to call $25k cars ‘cheap’ now, because people insist that they’re too good to have a subcompact without premium surfaces and soft-touch plastics.
my folks had a nano for 3 years (do not trust 4 year olds with car advice), it was a long time ago so I don’t really remember a whole lot about it, aside from it being this lovely yellow and me whining about the rear crank windows.
we sprung for the LX, which was the top spec model at the time which netted us front power windows and AC (very important in sweltering South Indian summers) , but as it was a 2012 model year, it didn’t get electronic power steering, an AMT or even an opening rear trunk for that matter (you had to fold the rear seat to access the ridiculously tiny trunk)
unfortunately it was taken away from us too soon by a flood :(. I think I still have its key fob and radio faceplate somewhere
Frankly, I’m shocked the rear windows were able to roll down. Seems like an easy way to cut costs!
There’s cost cutting and there’s GM level of cost cutting. Clearly they went with just cost cutting for the good of the vehicle 😛
I am incredibly grateful they didn’t get *that* crazy, the back of the nano was a miserable space as it was
fun fact: there were only 3 lugs per wheel
I’m surprised there were 3 lugs total!
that was yet another example of interesting cost cutting done lmao
Aw, that’s too bad. Did it move at all with the AC on and three people in the car?
it was quite light, so it did move. not especially quickly though
I’m like a moth to a flame when it comes to objectively shit cars. The Tata nano is shit and I want it.
But not more than a Reliant Robin. Which is my view of Most Shit.
you can have the best of both worlds with the Sipani Badal
Oh YES.
Oh NO (but also yes).
I had to Google that. Is it possible for a car to trigger body horror?
Oh my word. I had no idea that existed. Seems like it was put together in a fever dream.
My new dream is a one make race series with these.
its 4 wheeled relative, the Sipani Dolphin was a popular rally car back in the day, well before the era of the Suzuki Esteem (a Geo Metro but sedan) and Suzuki Gypsy (a LWB Samurai)
There’s a back seat?? Is the leg room measured in microns?
No, but the trunk is! You can see it there behind the rear seats. Where you have to access it from, because an opening trunk would’ve cost too much.
Initially, yes – they added a rear-opening hatch with the MY 2015 facelift.
Which came with a price increase.
The rear doesn’t open up?? Amazing stuff.
Just like early Saabs.
And VW Beetles.
And C3 Corvettes.
there were later version where there was a rear hatch; the one I drove had the fold-seat-to-get-to-trunk access, like an old Henry J or Nash Metropolitan or some 70s Corvettes. There’s also sort of a little frunk, too.
A frunk! So it’s better than a Mercedes in at least one way!
from what i recall, that frunk was absolutely useless if you wanted to store anything that wasnt a spare wheel
The great thing about truly small cars is that if you do happen to get into an accident, your relatives can just leave your ashes in it and put it on the mantel.
I seem to recall reading Gordon Murray (famed McLaren F1 designer) is a big fan of compact cars and owns a number of small but interesting examples in his personal collection as he finds the constraints of making a good (and cheap) small car more interesting than sky is the limit supercars.
Yeah, the GMA T.25 city car would have been neat to see reach production.
lol that took me a sec
Cheaper and, arguably safer, than a golf cart.
It would make better transportation for retirement communities.
In a mere seven years, you can legally import one, Torch!
Have to admit I’d kinda dig owning one, too. Not for the driving experience, you understand, but just for the Weirdness Factor.
Should be pretty familiar to those of us who have driven Citroen 2CVs.
oh dear, don’t tell me 2008 was almost 25 years ago O___O
Gettin’ realllllllll close!
Makes me feel, well, ancient. Like a Hindustan Ambassador.
fun facts about the amby:
it had 2 pickup versions, the Porter from the 1980s, and the Veer from the 2010s
it almost did not die in 2014, there were more derivatives of the Amby on the way (all based on that ancient platform) like an extended length limousine and a chopped down “sub 4 meter” sedan (“sub 4 meter cars” are a huge segment in india due to tax benefits)
it was re exported to the UK in the 90s and was marketed as the Fullbore Mark X (10) over there
it was also exported to Nigeria in left hand drive form as late as 2013
it was briefly the fastest mass produced car sold in india during the 90s when it got an Isuzu 4ZB1 1.8 petrol replacing its anemic BMC sourced 1.5 petrol
it has almost the exact same wheelbase as the s13 silvia (2475 mm vs the Amby’s 2464 mm), and yes, people have plonked amby bodies on s13 drivetrains. one of them even pushes 500hp!
im sure there are more facts in my head but they escape me at the moment T_T
And you’ll have to wait another 11 years if you want to import one of the Final Editions!
im canadian, i only have to wait 3 years
Nexteer did the halfshafts for the nano, and I got to drive one around the Nexteer test track in Saginaw. It was not fun to drive. You really feel the 37 horsepower when there’s a mustang behind you waiting to go faster.