Fiat to collaborate with Tata Motors on small car project

Tata Motors Ltd today disclosed that Fiat, with which it has a technology and marketing joint venture, will collaborate on its Rs1-lakh small-car project.

Ravi Kant, managing director, Tata Motors, however, said that the extent of collaboration would be limited. "At the stage at which we are today, where design and styling has been frozen and vendors have been fixed, the scope for involvement is limited,"Kant said, adding, "Perhaps, some fine-tuning can be done," he said.

Last Sunday, Tata Motors had said it had begun construction of the small car plant in Eastern India, amid protests against the land acquisition for the plant.

Tata Motors formed a joint venture with Fiat last July in which it has said it would invest more than $877 million to make cars and engines from 2008, while Tata Motors would market Fiat vehicles. The two companies may also make trucks.

The joint venture would make more than 100,000 cars and 200,000 engines and transmissions from the beginning of 2008.

According to reports, the two companies are likely to extend their cooperation to Latin America; Fiat has already said it would make Tata Motors' new 1-tonne pick-up truck in Argentina for Latin America and overseas from the second half of fiscal 2008.