The two-seat, mid-engine Racemo is the first product from Tata Motors’ exclusive sub-brand Tamo. Designed at the Tata Motors studio in Turin, Italy, the Racemo’s styling is race-car-inspired with elements of Tata’s impact design language, like the diamond daylight opening. The front features narrow Bi-LED headlights, an aggressive nose and a sporty front bumper. 

The car is powered by a turbocharged and intercooled 1.2L Revotron engine but tuned to produce 190hp at 6,500rpm and 210Nm of torque at 2,500rpm. The power is fed via a 6-speed Automated Manual Transmission (AMT) with push button reverse and paddle shifters. For a sports car, the slow shifts of an AMT aren’t ideal, but we’ll have to see if Tata has addressed the limitation of this gearbox technology.

Keeping the Racemo connected to the tarmac is an all-round independent double wishbone suspension with tyres differing in size at the front and rear. The front has 205/50 R17 tubeless radials while the rear is shod with chunkier 235/45 R18 tubeless radials.

The Racemo will also feature connected car technologies from Tata’s new partnership with Microsoft. The company hasn’t divulged specific details, but says the car will have advanced navigation, predictive maintenance, remote monitoring and over-the-air updates using Microsoft cloud-based technologies. The vehicle owner will interact with these tech bits via three screens in the instrument area.

On the safety front, the Racemo has disc brakes with ABS and EBD all around. The body is built with integrated crash safety protection with driver and passenger air bags that meet the upcoming Indian regulations. There is a standard three-point seat belt but owners can opt for a safer and racier four-point harness.

The Racemo is built on a patented MOFlex Multi-Material Sandwich structure that gives greater freedom in surface design and more efficient large-scale part integration. This leads to modularity and faster readiness for new vehicles. According to Tata Motors, this is being used for the first time in the automotive industry for passenger vehicles.

This isn’t the first time that Tata Motors has displayed a sports car concept. At the 2000 Geneva motor show, Tata unveiled the Aria concept roadster, which was followed by a coupe version in 2001. Both, however, did not reach the production line and the Aria name was used for its high-end MPV. The Racemo, on the other hand, will make it to showrooms. With ingredients of a bona fide sports car and the vast resources of Tata Motors backing it, Racemo could possibly emerge as a world-class contender. Tata must now execute the project with both speed and precision, two elements that haven’t been its forte. Tata is well aware of this and the creation of the small ‘ring fenced’ Tamo division is a rev in the right direction.