Tata Indica: Change The Way You Drive

Indian automobile giant Tata produced a super mini model car in 1998, the Tata Indica. The vehicle was an instant success and it heavily cut into the hitherto supremacy of Ambassador and Fiat cars as taxi.

First Passenger Car

Incidentally, Tata Indica was the first passenger car produced by Tata. Some of the facts relating to this car were as follows.

- Technology and components were indigenous.

- By mid-2008, Tata had already produced 910 thousand units of the vehicle.

- They had also prepared the platform to produce around 1.2 million units.

High Sales Rates

The annual sales of Indica have been as high as around 145 thousand units by 2007. The popularity continued almost unabated even in 2009 when around 800 units were sold every month.

Export Quality

Since the vehicle was found to be suitable for export, they were also sold overseas in Europe and Africa. Sales overseas commenced towards the end of the year 2004.

Indica Vista

Tata released a different version of Indica which was named as Indica Vista when the 9th Auto Expo was held in Delhi.

- However it was not just an improvement over the existing model.

- Instead it was built around completely different model without sharing anything of their Indica model.

Indica Vista Features

Some of the features of Indica Vista were as follows.

- Size of Vista was much larger than Indica.

- Dimensions of Vista stood at 3,795mm x 2,479mm for length and breadth respectively.

- The vehicle runs on a couple of new Fiat engines.

- One of them is 1.3 liter Quadrajet that ran on injection diesel.

- Other one was 1.2 liter petrol driven Safire MPFI VVT.

Discontinued Engine Version

Till the end of April 2010, Tata also marketed the 1.4 liter TDi but as it failed to meet the emission norms Stage IV set by the authorities in India, it was discontinued.

Joint Venture

Basically the Indica engines are a joint venture of Tata and Fiat. Venue for production is Ranjangaon. With the launching of Indica Vista during August 2008, a new model was introduced by Tata. It was 1.41, 90ps model that ran on petrol.

However the other model, Vista 1.21 that also runs on petrol and popularly known as the Safire met with criticism from various quarters. The reason was comparative low mileage generated that was in the range of only 5-9 km in town movements.

Photo Gallery of Tata Indica

Technical Characteristics of Tata Indica

Technical Characteristics of 2008 Tata Indica Vista 1.4 produced by Tata (IN).

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