(Source: USAToday & The Hindu)

The much-awaited Nano hit the roads on Friday with Mumbai resident Ashok Raghunath Vichare becoming the first owner of the world’s cheapest car from the stable of the 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 Mr. Vichare here. Tata, a Cornell University-trained architect, decided to develop Nano when he saw an entire Indian family riding on a scooter. Bloomberg says almost seven motorcycles are sold for every car in India, a nation of 1.1 billion people. Car sales in India may triple to 3 million units annually by 2015, according to a government forecast.

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

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

Vichare went for the more upscale LX version. It is his first car.The cheapest Nano retails for 123,360 rupees — or $2,531. Splurgers can spend up to $3,536 to pack the car with such luxury as cupholders and air conditioning, Bloomberg News reports.

Nano is expected to come to the U.S. in a couple years, owner Tata Motors has indicated. Don’t expect to see one on the freeway: at 624 cubic centimeters, the engine is smaller than those found on many motorcycles. Safety in crash? Not as bad as you’d expect, if early crash test results in Europe hold up. Tata already has a huge backlog of orders for Nano:

Tata, which owns Jaguar and Land Rover after buying them from Ford, has 206,703 orders. That’s more than double its initial sales plan. The company chose the first 100,000 customers through a lottery. It will take a year of production to catch up to the backlog.

Nano was commercially launched on March 23 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.

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.

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