Telco Small Car To Materialise In 98

A company source said the car would be a utility vehicle in the 800-1000cc range. While pricing has not been worked out, it would be competing with Maruti 800 and the Zen, the source added.

The company will set up a 1.5-lakh per annum capacity car unit. The proposed plant will be part of a comprehensive facility being set up by Telco which will have flexibile lines capable of manufacturing the small car, the Sumo and other models which are being worked out.

To begin with, it has imported a Nissan plant in a completely dismantled form and set it up near Pimpri. The plant will be used to manufacture Sumos and the proposed passenger car. This, the source said, would reduce the total investment needed for the car project substantially.

 

The Sumo has been a major success, and with Telco unable to meet the demand for the utility vehicle, it is now expanding production capacities.

Ratan Tata had in an interview earlier clearly stated that the strategy for the small car was to produce a product which would have the size of a Zen, the internal dimensions of an Ambassador and the price of a Maruti 800.

Telco is also believed to be working on a mid-sized car, too, though details of this are not known.

Telco has used the expertise of foreign companies in designing the cars: for instance, International Automotive Design, a small UK-based auto design firm which had design assignments like that of Ford's Scorpio, and Austrian engineering major AVL to help design petrol engines.