The People's Car!!!

The people's car is all set to be displayed on Jan 10th 2008, in The Delhi Auto Expo. This is Mr. Ratan Tata's dream project.

The vision of the car is to fill the gap between two wheelers and lowest priced four wheeler. The possibility of manufacturing a car for one lakh rupees has already been denied by the likes of Mr. Jagdish Khattar, the recently retired MD of Maruti Udyog. Biggies like Honda, Suzuki, Toyota and Hyundai still lives in the denial of possibility of a rupees one lakh car.

But, in a recent interview to the McKinsey Quarterly, Mr. Ratan Tata said: “If you could position an all-weather car that was not a glorified scooter or a stripped down car, then I believe there would be market potential for one million cars a year.”

And Tatas have bigger plans. Even before the launch of the car, Tata motors has submitted an application to Thailand’s Board of Investment (BoI) for an investment of around Rs 800-900 crore in Thailand for the same project. Now, that is what you call an aggressive strategy! The company already has a good presence in Thailand with its Ace, a one ton mini-truck. This would help company to further leverage its presence in the asian market.

Advertising Agency: The Diwan Arun Nanda-promoted Rediffusion has managed to bag the project. The fight was between the three Tata Motor agencies, the Piyush Pandey led O&M, Anil Kapoor's FCB Ulka and Mr Nanda's Rediffusion. Both O&M and Rediff are WPP agencies, while FCB Ulka is 100% Omnicom owned agency.

Distribution and after sales services is already present for Tata Motors. The target customers are also identified. So, if all goes well, including no technical faults, and inflation under control, there is no problem why the project won't be successful.

The car is supposed to be available during Diwali festival time.

My take: The car would do well!!!