Tata Motors is looking at exporting its pick-up trucks to Thailand. The company is said to be in advanced level of talks with the Thailand based Thai Rung Union Car Plc (TRU), a company in the business of customising pick-up trucks.
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Thailand is the biggest market for pick-up trucks outside the US. Thai Rung plans to import the Tatamobile compact pick-up trucks to Thailand. The Tatamobile is sold with a 2.0-litre, 62 bhp diesel engine in India.
However, it is expected that Tata will ship the Tatamobiles with a 2.0-litre petrol 140bhp unit, from the Safari SUV, to the Thai market, a market that is predominantly petrol driven.
Thai Rung has established itself in the Thai market as a customiser of pick-up trucks. The company has been making custom SUVs on locally assembled Isuzu and Nissan pick-up truck chassis. The company aims to sell about 5,000-10,000 of the Tata pick-ups annually.
At a later stage, Thai Rung will also import the Tata city commuter car, designed to be a low end intra-city commuter powered by a twin-cylinder engine.
Tata Motors was earlier exporting the Indica hatchback, rebadged as the CityRover, to the UK and European market through MG Rover. Now with the British manufacturer’s demise, Tata Motors is eager to get some export numbers from other markets.
Deepesh Rathore / Tilak Swarup
