The reverse countdown to the launch of Ratan Tata’s Rs 1-lakh car has begun. The world’s cheapest car will be unveiled just six months from now at Auto Expo 2008 in New Delhi. And when the first commercial unit of the still nameless car rolls out of Tata Motors’ new plant at Singur in West Bengal by July-August next year, it will make or break Ratan Tata’s reputation as a visionary and test Tata Motors’ ability to execute its chairman’s much-vaunted plans.

As things stand right now, Tata’s dream of creating a car that will sell for less than the price of an expensive mountain bicycle could disrupt the auto industry almost as much as Henry Ford’s introduction of the first mass produced car, the Model-T, did in 1908.

While Ford’s innovation has turned auto makers into behemoths manufacturing millions of cars out of massive factories spread across the world, Tata Motors is putting in place a distributive manufacturing plan for its Rs 1-lakh car, where dealers spread across the country will receive car kits that they will assemble in local workshops for their customers.

There are other innovations as well. While most cars today are front-engine designs, the Tata dream car will hark back to the first-ever “people’s car”, the Volkswagen Beetle, and sport a rear-engine. And at a time when the market is gravitating to high-powered engines, with even entry models from Maruti moving from 800-cc engines to 1,000-cc-plus engines, Tata’s car will have only 667-cc of power — not much more than the 500-cc powering Royal Enfield’s Machismo motorcycle.