The seemingly on-off relationship between Tata Commercial Vehicles and Iveco – a potentially arranged marriage that could come about as a result of the alliance struck between Tata and Fiat - the respective owners of the two marques – is examined here.

At one level, the much-trailed possibility of a Fiat-Tata LCV JV has now been confirmed. Fiat will build a Tata pick-up truck at its Cordoba, Argentina plant. This vehicle will be retailed in selected Latin American markets, as well as through Fiat dealerships in some European countries.

But the broader picture is still very cloudy. Our view remains that any further collaboration seems at best conditional on a vast amount of things, most of which appear to be somewhat intangible. The Forbes article speaks of MOUs and study groups, and places an apparently open-ended timescale on any possible deal. Indeed, Tata's recent decision to cosy up with Renault seems only to confirm an ambivalence at least on the part of the Indian side.

But this reportsuggests that Iveco is being used by Tata as a replacement for that which was promised by Daewoo - acquired by Tata a couple of years ago - and to date, a far from stellar contributor to the Indian design effort. Make your own mind up.

We do not feel that Iveco looks comfortable with Tata. The original deal between the principles makes a lot of sense from the perspective of sourcing and cost-effectiveness in terms of car manufacture, but there seems to be some danger of Iveco being shoehorned into this. We see this as inappropriate.

Hence the current stance: there is no deal, but there might be. On the other hand, so there might not be. Only time will tell. But, with Iveco now a key player in the next round of OEM consolidation, it’s arguable if time is actually a commodity available to either side. Of course, a MOU does serve as a spoiler, but not one likely to be ultimately effective should Fiat be offered a decent sum for its truck business.

In truth, whilst Iveco would doubtlessly be a technology leader in any deal with Tata, it would be a very much junior partner in terms of scale. We come back to the elegance of an Iveco-MAN-Navistar alliance, into which input from Tata – and also Iveco’s Chinese partner Yuejin – would make a lot of sense.