India's most famous automobile designer Dilip Chhabria of DC Design is not too keen to design a small car for the masses.
He took out a few minutes from his busy schedule at the 9th Auto Expo to speak to S Kalyana Ramanathan about how his cars will never go into a mass production mode.
Excerpts:
You say you are impressed by Tata Nano. Are you inspired enough to design your own small car?
No. Designing high-end luxury cars is more profitable (smiles). At best I can think of making and selling 1,000 sports cars or business vans. We don’t have the resources that a company like Tata Motors has.
Wouldn’t you want to take up that challenge and offer a mobility solution for the masses?
What is my place under the sun? Am an artist first. Our work is labour-intensive whereas for companies making cars it is capital-intensive. We are a team of 25 designers and 400 workers. Our cars are completely hand-made.
Tell us about your new super luxury car Ambierod.
It is built on the BMW 7 series chassis and would cost Rs 4 crore a piece.
How many do you expect to sell and who will buy it?
We will make 10 of these and we are finalising the deal with our first customer who is an NRI based out of Dubai.
