TaMo unveils RACEMO sportscar at Geneva Motor Show

TaMo unveils RACEMO sportscar at Geneva Motor Show

190hp, lambo doors and a Tata company badge. Who’d have thought?

When we first reported the emergence of the TaMo brand, and all the geekery and buzzwords it entailed, Tata made a tantalising reference to an upcoming sportscar that would soon be revealed. That revelation came today with the RACEMO, and Tata — or TaMo — aren’t messing about.

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The RACEMO is a sub-4m two-door (gull-wing even!) mid-engined, rear-wheel drive coupe, expected to hit the Indian market in the 2017 calendar year. Power will come from a 1.2-litre three-pot Revotron turbo-petrol, which will generate a lofty 190hp/210Nm. Maybe that’s why it’s a two-seater; they needed the room for the box of magical elves and a giant turbo! 0–100 will come up in a respectable six seconds, and that’s despite it coming with an automated-manual transmission!

Tata Motors claims that the RACEMO will comply with upcoming Indian regulations for passenger safety in the construction as well as in the inclusion of driver and passenger airbags. Despite the decidedly conceptual-looking interior, Pratap Bose, head of design at Tata Motors was heard on camera saying that the production model will indeed come with the gull-wing doors, funky wrap-around screens and race-inspired steering wheel of the Geneva show car.

It’s a ‘phygital’ car, merging the physical and digital worlds. An unfortunate moniker, which sounds like a condition that requires the attention of both, an ENT surgeon and a urologist

As with the previous TaMo communique, Tata has quite indiscriminately selected several fistfuls of buzzwords to sprinkle liberally around the RACEMO release. Some examples:

• IoT
• Digital ecosystem
• over-the-air updates
• Hololens
• Cloud technologies
• Azure
• XBox

I think what they’re subtly suggesting is “TECHNOLOGY GOOD!”

It’s “meant for the risk-taking, adventure loving, digitally native, mobile first technophiles of India”. They even came up with a term for this: it’s a ‘phygital’ car, merging the physical and digital worlds. An unfortunate moniker, which sounds like a condition that requires the attention of both, an ENT surgeon and a urologist. But it also means that you will be able to drive a RACEMO+ in the Forza Horizon 3 console and PC game, as well as in real life on special track days.

The car will also be able to update it’s firmware over-the-air using Microsoft cloud tech, which also allows remote monitoring and advanced analytics. We hope our mobile networks can keep up. Horrible things can happen when you lose internet connectivity during an ECU update. Don’t ask us how we know.