World's cheapest car gets a $4.6m bling makeover

It’s not often the Indian-made Tata Nano turns heads - except when a few early versions caught fire – but this one certainly will.

It might have no radio, no airbags and no power steering, but this model of the world’s cheapest new car is now worth some serious cash after it was covered in $4.6million-worth of gold, silver and jewels in Mumbai last week.

Billionaire businessman Ratan Tata - who recently bought Jaguar Land Rover to add to his collection of car companies - ordered the one-off design to celebrate the strength of his country's growing wealth and mark the 5,000 year history of the jewellery trade.

A normal Nano will give you plenty of change from $3,000, but this is in a different league since 30 artists from Tata’s jewellery company, GoldPlus, got busy transforming it one of the most expensive cars on the planet.

Of course there will be performance issues. The normally lightweight car is now weighed down with 80kg of 22 carat gold, 15kg of silver and 10,000 semi precious stones and gems, so it’s going to take every bit of the 25kW of power from the tiny engine to move it one millimetre.

Still, we’re pretty sure the idea isn’t to race this Nano, but promote Tata’s jewellery stores and help boost flagging sales of the “people’s car.”