The Tato Nano car

There’s been a lot of talk of late of these Indian made cars which cost about as much as a good holiday.  The Tato Nano 623cc car only costs 100,000 rupees which is about €1700.  The most basic version, the article goes on to explain, doesn’t have power steering, a radio or air conditioning …

Now how useful is a car like that going to be ?  Just imagine one of those puppies travelling the length and breath of Irish roads !  I can just imagine a plethora, nay, an army of countrywomen returning from various ICA functions (never understood why the word function was used to mean ‘meeting’ or ‘party’) trundling along the highways and byways of Mayo or Roscommon peering out over the steering wheel at a top speed of 65 mph !  I mean there’d be no Marian Finucane to spur them on or no Joe Duffy to hear their sob story when they ploughed into a ditch as a result of their arses being as heavy as the car itself (momentum is an awful thing sometimes).

And what about country lanes ?  With rather small and thin wheels, the roads lanes around my way would literally make shit of its rear mounted engine and undercarriage.  And roundabouts ?  Would it be able to handle a 60 mile an hour complete ignoring of a roundabout and plough on regardless ?

These silly questions were brought about by a tea break discussion about whether boy-racers would simply buy these cars up in order to completely wreck them, because everyone knows that boy racers have easily enough money for one of these cars a month !

The things we worry about ….