Tata Motors has entered into a joint venture with Coimbatore-based Jayem Automotives with an intent to build sporty Tata cars. J Anand, MD Jayem Automotives, is a known figure amongst Indian automotive enthusiasts and one of the very few world-renowned tuners from the country. The joint venture will be called JT Special Vehicles Pvt. Ltd.
The customised car industry in India is nascent, but this is the first step by an Indian car maker to build something akin to what AMG is for Mercedes or what Polestar is for Volvos. Tata Motors will be able to tap into Jayem’s years of experience in building performance parts, suspension setups, tuning engines and turning everyday road going cars into race cars to offer race-worthy Tata cars.
After the launch of Tamo and the partnership with Microsoft to build futuristic and connected cars, the addition of JTSV to its portfolio will certainly boost Tata’s image as a modern, aspirational car-maker. JTSV will be based out of Coimbatore and will have a single assembly line on which all the project cars will be assembled. The facility will have precision tools and machinery to develop and test performance components. It will also have a test facility to test the new cars and refine their performance before they are delivered to customers.
With regard to the cars, this might kick off the long-pending Tata Bolt Sport with a tricked 1.2-litre turbocharged petrol engine. Knowing how composed the Tiago is for its size, we would certainly not mind the same turbo-charged engine being fitted into the Tiago’s engine bay to make a real hot hatch. It would also be interesting to see some tricked out Tata Safaris if not the Hexas.