Tata's dream car 'Nano' hits the road today

The much eagerly awaited Nano hit the roads on Friday with Mumbaikar Raghunath Vichare becoming the proud first owner of the world's cheapest car from the stable of Tatas.

"I hope that the Tata Nano will bring motoring pleasure to those who will be buying their first car as also those who currently own a car but want a modern, contemporary and emission-friendly city car," Tata Motors Chairman Ratan Tata said after handing over the key of the first Nano to Vichare in Mumbai.

Vichare has bought a Tata Nano LX (lunar silver), the top-end model.

With Tata handing over the top-end model to Vichare, the delivery process of first one lakh cars have started, which would be completed by March next year.

Along with Vichare, Ashish Balakrishnan, an HDFC Bank employee, and Kores India also received their Tata Nano LX (sunshine yellow), and Tata Nano LX (lunar silver) respectively.

Nano was commercially launched on 23^rd March this year. It has received 2.06 lakh bookings. Tata Motors has already selected over 1.55 lakh customers for delivering the car, of which the first one lakh cars are price-protected.

Conceived in 2003, the car was first showcased at the Delhi Auto Expo in 2008 and hit the limelight when the project was shifted from West Bengal to Gujarat after a series of violent protests led by Trinamool chief Mamata Banerjee.

The 623-cc rear-engine car, boasting a fuel economy of over 23 km per litre, project has costed over Rs 2,000 crore.

Nano carries a price range of Rs 1.23 lakh to Rs 1.72 lakh (ex-showroom, Delhi) for the three different variants.

The company would roll out the Nanos from its Pantnagar facility, which has an annual capacity of 50,000 units. The car would also be produced from the company's Sanand unit in Gujarat once its goes on stream.