Indian Car Blog - Carazoo.com

How does this sound? Tata Nano for One Crore rupees. Ridiculous you say. Well read on before you jump into conclusions.

This humble car which was conceptualised for the four-in-a-scooter family in India and it was priced right at Rs 1 lakh by Ratan Tata, the brain behind the Nano and chairman of the Tata Group. Now that Nano stories have been hitting the stands almost every day and Nano’s popularity is ever growing after it won the Indian Car of the Year award, It surely has attained the star status.

Cashing on this star status of the humble Nano, Dilip Chhabria, a well known Mumbai automotive designer has just created a Nano, not for the ordinary people as it was conceptualised but for people with deep pockets. The asking price of the DC Nano would be Rs 1 Crore. To be precise add a couple more zeroes to the zeroes in a lakh and you will find the astronomical sum hovering around your head for the Nano.

You could buy 100 Nanos for the price of this one luxury small Nano. Now before you scoff off the idea, we also say why this Nano is different from other Nanos. The original tiny 623 cc engine has been ripped off the Nano to make way for the much punchier 1600 cc engine that can rocket upto 200 kmph aided by a seven-speed triptronic transmission. How cool is that?

DC’s One crore Nano will be refurbished with choicest of the exteriors and drool worthy interiors. This Nano will carry gull-wing configuration doors that open towards the sky(Are you reading this blog Mercedes ?) State of the art biometric door handles is a standard feature in this Nano that allows only the owner to enter. On the lighting front, DC has imbibed Xenon lights and LED clusters. Polycarbonate glazing to the floor for improved aerodynamics of this Nano is also one of the innovative features. This Nano comes with a wider and bigger 15” alloy wheels when compared to the drab 12” wheels of the ‘ordinary’ Nano and can easily qualify to become the world’s smallest sports car.

This Nano is equipped with a panoramic wind-screen and the interiors are packed with the latest gizmos, similar to those found in the Ambierod incarnation of what was once India’s most ubiquitous four-wheeler. This Nano will hold a mobile LCD screen to watch movies, browse internet, play games and for navigational purpose. The instrumental panel is entirely customized which aligns with the LCD screen.

DC’s Nano will sadly not have 5 seats as in the original but just two seats and this car is meant for long drives and has a door-mounted camera for rear vision which can also record clips which the driver may otherwise miss on the move.

It can be recalled that at the Auto Expo 2008, DC’s Ambierod which is a complete transformation of the Ambassador into a three-seater coupe inspired by American Hotrods bikes was a rage. The Rs 4-crore Ambierod was sold even before the concept was unveiled in January 2008 to a Dubai-based NRI.

As per Mr. Chhabria, he has not frozen the concepts to be unveiled at the Auto Expo, but a person with knowledge of the development said that major work on the Nano has been completed. “Selling such cars is not an issue. The issue is how to conceptualize the design,” he opined. The changes have been incorporated without stretching the Nano’s size.

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Korea has joined the race of supercars with the advent of a twin-turbo version of Oullim Motors' Spirra V6.

This supercar has been advertised as "More fun than a Porsche." Well, this slogan now does not invoke derision, but curiosity amongst the Koreans.

With a top speed above 300km/h, a turbocharged mid-engine layout, carbon-fibre body, seating for two and head-turning looks help Spirra V6 meet all the characteristics of a supercar except for the price. While it could never be called cheap, its starting point of about $100,000 for the base model is way below normal supercar territory!

In recent years, the traditional supercar names like Ferrari, Lamborghini, Porsche, Mercedes, McLaren and Jaguar have been joined by a whole host of exotic and expensive newcomers like Sweden’s Koenigsegg, Germany’s Gumpert, the fiercesome Bugatti Veyron from France, Italy’s Pagani Zonda and American muscle in the shape of the Saleen S7 and the world’s fastest production car, the SSC Ultimate Aero.

At present, the automotive industry of South Korea stands as the fifth largest in the world. It has come along way since the 1.2-litre Hyundai Pony made its debut in 1975. By the mid-1980s, Korea was starting to make a name for itself as an exporter of cheap, reliable, plain-looking cars.

The two decades from 1990 saw a hectic capacity buildup, sparking fierce domestic competition and the inevitable consolidation and casualties, with Kia taken into the Hyundai fold and Daewoo and Samsung falling under the control of General Motors and Renault respectively.

SsangYong Motors, once owned by Daewoo, is now majority owned by Chinese maker SAIC and Hyundai has the benchmark performer and innovator in the Korean automobile world. The company has made a niche for itself in the world market and is currently the fourth largest car maker of the world.

Oullim Motors sources Hyundai components, including the V6 engine, for its Spirra sports car, though essentially the design is the work of a former SsangYong Motors designer, Kim Han-chul.

This designer with his wife Choi Jisun, a researcher at Hyundai Motor, realised their concept of a high performance mid-engine sports car and presented the concept car PS-II at the 2002 Seoul Motor Show and the full Spirra car appeared at motor shows in Beijing (2004) and Seoul (2005). But by the time the Spirra was ready for production in 2006, the money had run out and the project went into abeyance.

In July 2006, up-and-coming information technology tycoon and auto enthusiast Park Dong-hyuk set up Oullim Motors and in June 2007 took over Proto Motors to revive the Spirra project. The first cars were produced in 2008 and in July this year the Spirra gained Whole Vehicle Type Approval (WVTA) which gives it access to the European market.

The Spirra is aimed to deliver 300 cars worldwide in 2010 and will also resume a three-year contract to deliver 145 vehicles to a Dutch distributor and to supply 100 vehicles to a distributor in Malaysia by 2014.

The emergence of the Spirra poses a question for the automotive world: if South Korea is able to produce a supercar, can China and India be far behind?

As 2010 approaches, it seems a whole lot more likely that the Chinese and Indian concept cars seen at motor shows in Beijing, Shanghai and New Delhi may one day hit the road.

China is the world’s largest car maker and India ranks only 11th this year with 2.28 million, but by 2012 is expected to take fifth spot from Korea with 3.55 million.

In India, acclaimed designer Dilip Chhabria has created several supercar prototypes under the names DC Go, Gaia and Infidel, using a Noble GT chassis.

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