Datsun ‘GO’ing to production before Auto Expo

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Datsun has announced that its first product for India, the GO will go on sale in March. The start of the production has been scheduled on February 4 at Nissan’s manufacturing facility in Oragadam, Chennai. The Minister for Industries, Government of Tamil Nadu, Mr. Thiru. P. Thangamani will preside over the function along with Vice Chairman, Nissan Motor Co., Mr. Toshiyuki Shiga.

Both the GO and GO+ share the same platform as the previous generation Nissan Micra and are powered by a 1.2-litre three-cylinder petrol engine. Mated to a five-speed manual gearbox, the engine will churn out 75bhp and 104Nm of torque. The GO will be locally manufactured at Nissan’s Oragadam plant and sold through Nissan dealerships across the country.

Datsun is a brand that Nissan revived to introduce budget cars in emerging markets like India, Brazil, Russia etc. Ahead of its launch in India, Nissan Motor had undertaken a pan-India roadshow campaign to showcase the Datsun GO across 90 cities last December.The hatchback will also be showcased at the 2014 Delhi Auto Expo along with the GO+ MPV. Expected to be priced below Rs four lakh, the hatchback might give the small cars from Maruti and Hyundai a run for their money.

In related news, Nissan, earlier this week, inked a 10-year pact with the Ennore Port Ltd. to export the company's locally produced vehicles to foreign markets. Nissan’s Chennai plant has for long been used for producing vehicles to be exported to other markets. It will be a similar story with the GO, with Nissan planning to export it to other RHD markets.