HAMISH MCDONALD

BARGAIN WHEELS: The Tata Nano is India's cheapest car.

After introducing its now famous so-called US$2500 car, the Nano, to the streets of its home country, India's Tata group is preparing to take the stylish little four-seat bubble of steel and glass to the world market.

Within two to three years, says the group's chairman, Ratan Tata, the company will launch a vamped-up, slightly wider version of the Nano in the United States, fitted with modern safety features such as an advanced braking system. An electric version may come even sooner.

''It will be a full car,'' Tata says. ''US$7000 is still an attractive price.''

While bringing compact size and value to mature Western markets, Tata is also taking luxury motoring east.

It is discussing a joint venture to manufacture Jaguar sedans and Range Rover SUVs in China, already the second-biggest market for these top-end brands acquired from Ford four years ago.

But the ability to think small may turn out to be Tata's unique selling point, even though it's one of the biggest business groups in a country destined to be among the biggest forces in the global economy.

Indeed, thinking small is helping the whole country leap ahead, as in the ultra-cheap packages that have put mobile phones in the hands of small farmers and street peddlers, and the newly-developed $35 tablet computer, the Akaash (meaning ''sky''), that the government plans to hand out to school students.

Bringing his baby, the Nano, into the world has been a fraught process, however, as Ratan Tata outlined in a talk with the Sydney Morning Herald in his office at Bombay House, headquarters of the group founded by his great-great-grandfather, Jamshedji Tata, in 1868.

Original post:
Thinking small makes car a big success