Strengthening its presence in global markets. Tata is planning to export Tata Nano and Tata Aria to new markets where left hand drive models are accepted. Recently we brought you a news wherein Tata Nano left hand drive and right hand drive models were caught testing in Pune. We also confirmed with the drivers of both the Nanos that the Indian major is testing the diesel and CNG models as well.
Now while all of us have been focusing on the left hand drive Nano, Tata has been caught testing left hand drive model of the Aria crossover. One of the fellow blogs, Motorbash has managed to bring some fresh pictures of Aria LHD due to hit the Italian market. The company is performing some rigorous tests on the Aria to ensure a perfect product. Apart from Aria, the company exports Xenon and Indica Vista to the Italian market.
Although the image is small one can notice the driver sitting on the left hand side. If this does not convince you, the image presented below has the Aria with a LHD printed paper on the left corner of the rear glass.
Interestingly the Italian Aria features a retuned 2.2 Litre DICOR 4 cylinder CRDI diesel engine that puts out a max power of 150 BHP, which is 10 BHP more than the outgoing Indian model. In Italy Tata offers the Aria in both 4×2 and 4×4 variants under the following trims: Prestige 4×2, Prestige 4×4 and Pride 4×4.
The answer to why Tata has chosen the export route to make up for the falling sales lies in the fact that Mahindra & Mahindra only SUV, Mahindra XUV500 is doing tremendously well is a feature packed car that too at a lower price tag. Although it is being speculated that Tata may consider revising the 2.2 Litre DICOR engine for the Indian market as well, we don’t think it would happen anytime soon as the Aria is not selling well enough.
We do hope that Aria does attract customers in Italy and helps the company’s sales graph to show a significant increase over the coming months.
