Nano drives automobile designers in world market
The Economic Times — January 26, 2008

When Ratan Tata drove Nano at the Auto Expo, the world applauded Indian enterprise. Nano has spurred the present breed of designers to take India to the world through their designs. Pinnen Ferina, Renault, Ford and General Motors among others are looking at Indian designers for their future models.

Finally, the world has woken to the paradigm shift in Indian automobile industry, says National Institute of Design's principal designer (faculty of industrial design) Pradyumna Vyas. "If IT ruled the roost in 1990s, this will be an era of automobile designers. With Indian designers thinking out-of-box and daring to dream beyond the obvious, the good times for the sector has just set in," he said.

Vyas, who worked with Tata Motor's design team in Pune for ideation on the small car in mid-2000 , even guided three NID students to create concept small cars in 2005. Vyas told ET, "There is more to Nano than miniaturisation, it is a trend-setter and a technological marvel. With automobile industry realising that sheer styling can put their product on the forefront, automobile designers have a plethora of opportunities ahead of them."

Nano has stamped its approval on the capability of Indian automobile designers. No one feels it more than Chennai-based Rajesh Mirajker who was the consultant to Tata Motors Ltd in 2003 when the decision to go ahead with Nano was frozen by Ratan Tata. Mirajker is the proprietor of industrial designing firm Mirajker Design.

He told ET, "Tata has designed a car for Indians. Importantly, it is even designed and styled by Indians and that is what is significant.

Mirajker said even as designing a small car was a challenge as the team had to get the right mix of parameters - technical, marketing, manufacturing and homologation - to make ends meet, it proved the might of Indian designers.

"The ball has been set rolling. Indian designers must continue to churn out more revolutionary products," he said. Further, with the likes of Pinnen Ferina, Renault, Ford and General Motors reaching out to Indian designers, there is no time to be lost for designers to join the automobile design revolution era, he said.