From F1 to the Nano, India goes car mad

To judge from the billboards in Mumbai (Bombay) and the buzz at the annual New Delhi motor show, it appears that India has gone car-crazy - with two of the country's most dynamic tycoons at the heart of it. However, the two men's projects could not have been more different: in Mumbai, the launch of Force India, a new team to compete in the multi-million-pound world of Formula One racing; in New Delhi, the launch of a 'people's car', the cheapest in the world, priced at just £1,200.

Behind the F1 project is the flamboyant brewery and airline magnate Vijay Mallya. He has bought and repackaged the Ferrari-powered Spyker team which finished bottom of the constructors' championship last season. Mallya announced that Giancarlo Fisichella was joining from Renault to be lead driver, an appointment he hoped would help the team capture "the force of a billion hearts" - the slogan chosen in an attempt to get a cricket-obsessed nation involved in what is, so far, a little-known sport in India.

Mallya, 52, well known for the parties he throws aboard his super-yacht Indian Empress, said he plans to double the team's budget for the coming year from $70m to $120m. His big ambition is to get Force India onto the winner's podium by the 2010 season, in time for the inaugural Indian Grand Prix.

The 'people's car' is the baby of Ratan Tata, 70-year-old chairman of the vast steel-to-cars-to-cable-to software Tata Group. Tata (pictured) told journalists at the annual Auto Expo how he had dreamt of building the Nano for years, having watched entire Indian families piling on to two-wheelers - "the father driving the scooter, his young kid standing in front of him, his wife seated behind him holding a little baby."

"It led me to wonder whether one could conceive of a safe, affordable, all-weather form of transport for such a family." He hoped the four-seater Tata Nano would bring "the joy, pride and utility of owning a car to many families".

Ratan Tata, great-grandson of the founder of the Tata conglomerate, was responsible a year ago for the much publicised buyout of the Corus steel group. He was listed by Fortune magazine in November as being among the 25 most powerful people in world business.