Did we spot the Ashok Leyland-Nissan test mule?

Sources tell us the truck we spotted day before yesterday on the outskirts of Chennai city is most likely the truck Ashok Leyland and Nissan and working jointly towards.

The cabin is lifted from a phased-out Nissan mini truck and the company is conducting trials for various payloads. Readers of IAB have spotted this truck with different number of water cans on other occasions. The driver though, everytime, had plugged into his iPod while the installed equipment on-board did all the data logging for him.

Sources suggest to IAB a 1.5-liter 4-cylinder diesel engine could power this humongous mini truck. The ECU for the engine might come from Delphi while the unit's calibration could have taken place at AVL in Austria.

There is not much available on the launch date but the pace at which this project is progressing, we think a 2011 debut is feasible.

We'll keep a close eye on this guy.

Have you seen a similar test mule? Then why not write to me at notjustshrawan (at) gmail.com ?