Indians to make Cowboy Cadillacs?

by James Bryant, August 14th, 2007, 1:12 pm

You can almost hear the collective “Aw, nuts” at Ford, GM, and Chrysler. As the Detroit Three try to get their North American operations back on track, Indian carmaker Mahindra & Mahindra has announced it plans to bring a lineup of compact pickups and SUVs to the US market by 2009.

The vehicles will not be a threat to the Detroit Three’s full-size, feature-laden pickups (what us Texans colloquially call Cowboy Cadillacs), at least not at first. Mahindra & Mahindra’s first product rollouts will be based on its Scorpio SUV, and they include a two-door pickup, two four-door pickups, and two five-door SUVs. All will have the same four-cylinder, diesel engine. Mahindra & Mahindra may add gasoline engines later.

Mahindra & Mahindra says prices for the vehicles will be at the low end of the spectrum for small trucks. To keep the price down Mahindra & Mahindra is trying to avoid the 25% US tariff on imported trucks (called the chicken tax) by lobbying Washington to change the law — something the company admits is unlikely to happen any time soon. (You can bet the Detroit Three’s lobbyists will fight tooth and nail to stop any attempt to change the law.) Another end-around the tariff would be for Mahindra & Mahindra to build an assembly plant in the US. But the company wants to dip its toe in the water before making any big cash outlays for plants and equipment in the US.

Mahindra & Mahindra has an “If I can make it there, I can make it anywhere” strategy for entering the US, reasoning that if it can convince the fussiest car buyers on earth to buy its trucks, everyone else on the planet will follow suit.

So Detroit can focus on defending its big pickup turf from Toyota (Tundra), and Nissan (Titan) for now. But if the Indian four-banger catches on, the next Cowboy Cadillac you buy might really be an Indian.