Thread: Tata Indica Vista

Tata Motors' launch of the original Indica in was a head line event. India's first modern car got the attention of the local media like no car before it, and justifiably so. It was the only Indian-engineered car with a modern monocoque chassis at the time (it still is) and customers were captivated by its very modern shape. This new Indica should have received similar attention and acclaim at this year's Auto Expo.

It was, however, totallyovershad¬owed by the unveiling of another groundbreaking car from Tata the N ano. But the Vista is just as important. A car that has almost a decade of Tata Motors' learning and engineering know-how distilled into it, the success of the Vista will mean the larger success of Tata as a carmaker. It may have taken Tata the better part of a decade or thereabouts to complete project Xl, negating some first-mover advantage it had with the Indica, but the delays in the project have a silver lining. Tata via its association with Fiat got access to Fiat powertrains used on both the diesel and petrol versions of the Vista.And that can only mean one less hurdle for Tata in the near future.



Remember the Vista today is not the only large diesel hatch back in our market, far from it. It has some really stiff and now well-entrenched competition 10 contend with. If that weren't enough, there's the legacy of the Indica itself and the baggage that comes with it. Still Tata has learnt a lot and moved forward a lot in the last decade. New processes and new competencies have been garnered via its technology outsourcing firm Tata Technologies and the company has got itself a full set of testing and validation laboratories in house. None of this, however, is as important as the Vista itself. Question is, will Vista be the big step from Tata.